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“Discussing about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s similar to talking about a queen,” explains the choreographer. Known as Mama Africa, the iconic artist also associated in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a young person sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she eventually became a diplomat for the nation, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her remarkable story and impact inspire the choreographer’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its British debut.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen merges dance, live music, and oral storytelling in a stage work that is not a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to New York in 1959, she was barred from her homeland for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after wedding Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, part celebration, part provocation – with the fabulous vocalist Tutu Puoane at the centre reviving Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually presided over by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the fine, she went to prison for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when studying Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Seutin’s parent is from Belgium and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she established her company Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a child, and move along in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in London. “I stopped working for a quarter to look after her and she was always asking for the singer. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to learning of her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the era), she discovered that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in labor in the year, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to be present at her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their success and you overlook that they are struggling like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Creation and Themes

These reflections contributed to the making of the show (first staged in the city in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was effective, but the idea for the piece was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, she pulls out threads of her life story like memories, and references more generally to the idea of uprooting and loss today. Although it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of characters connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented dancers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on stage. Seutin’s choreography incorporates multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

She was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the cast were unaware about the artist. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “I think she would inspire young people to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks Seutin. “However she accomplished this very elegantly. She’d say something poignant and then perform a beautiful song.” She aimed to take the same approach in this production. “We see movement and listen to beautiful songs, an aspect of enjoyment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. That’s what I admire about Miriam. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be graced by her ability.”

• The performance is at London, the dates