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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s similar to talking about a sovereign,” states the choreographer. Known as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist additionally associated in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a young person dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in the city, she eventually served as an envoy for Ghana, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her remarkable story and impact motivate Seutin’s latest work, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines movement, 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 relocating to New York in 1959, she was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with the exceptional South African singer Tutu Puoane at the centre bringing her music to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial venue for locally made drinks and lively conversation, often presided over by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a shebeen queen who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was a newborn. Unable to pay the fine, she was incarcerated for half a year, bringing her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey began – just one of the details Seutin learned when studying Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” exclaims she, when they met in Brussels after a performance. Seutin’s father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she established her dance group Vocab Dance. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and move along in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … the artist sings at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in medical care in the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was always asking for Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were singing together,” she remembers. “There was ample time to pass 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 someone who overcame illness in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter the girl died in labor in the year, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you overlook that they are facing challenges like anyone else,” says Seutin.

Development and Concepts

These reflections went into the making of the show (first staged in the city in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was successful, but the idea for the piece was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin highlights threads of Makeba’s biography like memories, and references more broadly to the theme of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “And we gather as these alter egos of personas linked with Miriam Makeba to welcome this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the musicians on the platform. Seutin’s choreography incorporates various forms of dance she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including street styles like the form.

Honoring strength … the creator.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the group were unaware about the singer. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a heart attack on stage in the country.) Why should younger generations learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate young people to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” remarks the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then perform a beautiful song.” She wanted to adopt the same approach in this work. “Audiences observe movement and hear melodies, an element of entertainment, but mixed with powerful ideas and moments that resonate. This is what I admire about her. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a manner that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is showing in London, 22-24 October