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“When you speak about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s similar to talking about a queen,” states the choreographer. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist additionally spent time in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a teenager dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she eventually served as an envoy for Ghana, then the country’s representative to the UN. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a activist. This remarkable life and legacy inspire Seutin’s new production, the performance, set for its British debut.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show combines dance, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes her past, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to New York in 1959, Makeba was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was banned from the United States after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The performance is like a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with the fabulous vocalist the performer at the centre reviving Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar venue for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, usually managed by a host. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the penalty, she was incarcerated for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey began – just one of the things the choreographer learned when studying her story. “So many stories!” exclaims she, when they met in the city after a performance. Seutin’s father is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and dance to them in the living room.

Songs of freedom … Miriam Makeba sings at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was constantly asking for the singer. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” she recalls. “There was ample time to kill at the facility so I began investigating.” As well as learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in the year, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the era), she found that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that her child Bongi passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to be present at her own mother’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you look at their success and you overlook that they are struggling like anyone else,” states the choreographer.

Development and Themes

These reflections contributed to the creation of the show (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the piece was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she highlights threads of her life story like memories, and nods more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. While it’s not explicit in the performance, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of personas connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the multi-talented dancers appear possessed by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on the platform. Her dance composition includes multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the years, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like the form.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

She was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group didn’t already know about the singer. (She passed away in the year after having a cardiac event on the platform in the country.) Why should new audiences discover the legend? “I think she would motivate young people to stand for what they are, speaking the truth,” says Seutin. “But she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a beautiful song.” Seutin aimed to adopt the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe dancing and hear melodies, an element of entertainment, but intertwined with strong messages and moments that hit. This is what I admire about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at the city, the dates