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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a queen,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, Makeba additionally spent time in New York with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a young person dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she eventually became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her rich life and legacy motivate the choreographer’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen combines movement, live music, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that is not a straightforward biodrama but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her story of exile: after relocating to New York in the year, she was barred from South Africa for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was excluded from the US after marrying activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance is like a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, part provocation – with a exceptional South African singer 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 unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was a newborn. Unable to pay the fine, Christina was incarcerated for half a year, bringing her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey began – just one of the details the choreographer learned when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” exclaims she, when they met 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 South African mother would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and move along in the living room.

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

A decade ago, 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 remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the facility so I started researching.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the release of the leader (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), Seutin found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that her child the girl died in childbirth in 1985, and that due to her exile she could not be present at her parent’s memorial. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you overlook that they are facing challenges like everyone,” states Seutin.

Development and Concepts

These reflections went into the making of the production (first staged in Brussels in the year). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she highlights elements of her life story like memories, and nods more broadly to the theme of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not overt in the show, she had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of characters connected to the icon to welcome this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in the show.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear taken over by rhythm, in synthesis with the musicians on stage. Her dance composition includes various forms of movement she has absorbed over the time, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including street styles like the form.

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

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 died in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in the country.) Why should new audiences learn about the legend? “In my view she would motivate the youth to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something poignant and then perform a beautiful song.” She aimed to take the same approach in this production. “We see dancing and hear melodies, an element of entertainment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. That’s what I admire about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. But she achieved it in a manner that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in the city, the dates