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“When you speak about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Called the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also spent time in New York with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in Johannesburg, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was married to a Black Panther. Her remarkable life and legacy inspire the choreographer’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

A Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines dance, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on Makeba’s history, particularly her story of exile: after moving to the city in the year, she was prohibited from her homeland for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was excluded from the United States after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance resembles a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with a exceptional vocalist the performer at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar venue for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually presided over by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a proprietress who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina went to prison for half a year, bringing her baby with her, which is how her eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer learned when researching her story. “So many stories!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in the city after a performance. Seutin’s parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she founded her dance group Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in hospital in London. “I paused my career for a quarter to take care of her and she was always asking for Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” she recalls. “There was ample time to pass at the hospital so I began investigating.” As well as learning of her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the era), she found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that her child the girl died in childbirth in the year, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their success and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” states Seutin.

Creation and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the making of the show (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was successful, but the concept for the work was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. Within that, Seutin highlights elements of her life story like memories, and nods more generally to the theme of uprooting and loss nowadays. Although it’s not explicit in the show, she had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “And we gather as these alter egos of personas connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in the show.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by rhythm, in synthesis with the musicians on stage. Her choreography incorporates multiple styles of movement she has absorbed over the time, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including street styles like the form.

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

She was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the group didn’t already know about the artist. (She passed away in 2008 after having a heart attack on stage in the country.) Why should younger generations discover the legend? “I think she would motivate the youth to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something poignant and then sing a lovely melody.” Seutin aimed to take the same approach in this work. “Audiences observe dancing and listen to melodies, an element of enjoyment, but mixed with strong messages and moments that hit. This is what I respect about her. Because if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They back away. But she achieved it in a way that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

• The performance is showing in London, the dates