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“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” remarks the choreographer. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, Makeba additionally associated in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a teenager sent to work to support her family in the city, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a activist. This rich life and legacy inspire Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

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 story of exile: after moving to the city in 1959, she was barred from her homeland for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the United States after wedding activist her spouse. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, some challenge – with the fabulous South African singer the performer leading bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … the production.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an under-the-radar venue for locally made drinks and lively conversation, often presided over by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was a newborn. Incapable of covering the penalty, she went to prison for half a year, taking her baby with her, which is how her eventful life began – just one of the details Seutin discovered when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in the city after a show. Her parent is from Belgium and she was raised there before relocating to study and work in the UK, where she established her dance group the ensemble. Her South African mother would sing her music, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and dance to them in the living room.

Songs of freedom … the artist performs at the venue in 1988.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in medical care in London. “I paused my career for a quarter to take care of her and she was always requesting the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin recalls. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to learning of her victorious homecoming to the nation in 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), Seutin found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in labor in the year, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you overlook that they are struggling like anyone else,” says the choreographer.

Development and Themes

These reflections contributed to the making of the show (first staged in Brussels in the year). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was successful, but the concept for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she pulls out elements of her life story like memories, and references more generally to the theme of displacement and dispossession nowadays. While it’s not overt in the show, she had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of characters connected to the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled dancers appear possessed by rhythm, in synthesis with the musicians on the platform. Seutin’s dance composition includes multiple styles of movement she has learned over the years, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including urban dances like krump.

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast were unaware about the singer. (She died in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in Italy.) Why should younger generations discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate young people to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something poignant and then perform a beautiful song.” She aimed to adopt the similar method in this production. “We see movement and listen to melodies, an element of entertainment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances that hit. That’s what I admire about her. Since if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. But she achieved it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at London, 22-24 October