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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a queen,” states Alesandra Seutin. Known as Mama Africa, the iconic artist additionally spent time in New York with jazz greats like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager sent to work to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she later 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 activist. This remarkable story and impact inspire the choreographer’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show merges dance, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a simple biography but utilizes Makeba’s history, particularly her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, Makeba was barred from her homeland for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The show is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with a fabulous vocalist Tutu Puoane leading bringing her music to vibrant life.

Power and poise … the production.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar venue for locally made drinks and lively conversation, usually presided over by a host. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Miriam was a newborn. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina went to prison for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how her eventful life began – just one of the things the choreographer discovered when studying Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in Brussels after a show. Her 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 Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the home.

Melodies of liberation … Miriam Makeba performs at the venue in 1988.

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in hospital in London. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was constantly asking for the singer. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” Seutin recalls. “I had so much time to pass at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the era), Seutin found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in labor in 1985, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to attend her own mother’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you focus on their achievements and you overlook that they are facing challenges like anyone else,” says the choreographer.

Development and Themes

These reflections went into the creation of the show (premiered in the city in the year). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the piece was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, Seutin highlights threads of her life story like flashbacks, and references more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not overt in the performance, she had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “And we gather as these other selves of characters connected to the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear possessed by beat, in synthesis with the players on stage. Seutin’s choreography incorporates multiple styles of movement she has absorbed over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including urban dances like the form.

Honoring strength … the creator.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group were unaware about the artist. (She passed away in 2008 after having a cardiac event on the platform in the country.) Why should new audiences learn about the legend? “I think she would motivate the youth to stand for what they are, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then sing a lovely melody.” Seutin aimed to take the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe movement and hear melodies, an element of enjoyment, but mixed with strong messages and instances that hit. This is what I respect about Miriam. Since if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They back away. But she achieved it in a way that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at London, the dates