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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s similar to talking about a royal figure,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Referred to as Mama Africa, Makeba also associated in New York with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in the city, she eventually served as an envoy for the nation, then Guinea’s representative to the UN. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her remarkable life and legacy motivate the choreographer’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges movement, live music, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that is not a straightforward biodrama but utilizes Makeba’s history, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in 1959, she was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was banned from the US after marrying activist her spouse. The performance is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with the exceptional vocalist the performer leading bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial venue for locally made drinks and lively conversation, usually presided over by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen 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 infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life began – just one of the details Seutin discovered when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Seutin’s parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and move along in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … the artist performs at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother 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. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” Seutin recalls. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to the nation in the year, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the era), Seutin found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in childbirth in the year, and that because of her banishment she could not be present at her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you overlook that they are struggling like anyone else,” says the choreographer.

Creation and Themes

These reflections contributed to the creation of the show (premiered in the city in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s treatment was successful, but the concept for the work was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, Seutin pulls out threads of her life story like memories, and references more broadly to the idea of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not overt in the show, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of personas linked with the icon to welcome this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear possessed by rhythm, in synthesis with the players on the platform. Her dance composition includes various forms of movement she has absorbed over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including urban dances like krump.

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

She was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (She passed away in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should younger generations discover Mama Africa? “I think she would motivate young people to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” Seutin wanted to take the same approach in this work. “Audiences observe movement and listen to beautiful songs, an element of enjoyment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. That’s what I respect about Miriam. Since if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is showing in the city, 22-24 October