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“If you talk about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s similar to talking about a queen,” remarks the choreographer. Known as the Empress of African Song, Makeba 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 later served as an envoy for Ghana, then the country’s official delegate to the UN. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her rich story and impact inspire Seutin’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show combines movement, live music, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes Makeba’s history, especially her story of exile: after relocating to New York in the year, Makeba was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after wedding Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, part provocation – with a exceptional South African singer Tutu Puoane at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In the country, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually presided over by a host. Her parent Christina was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was a newborn. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina went to prison for six months, bringing her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the details the choreographer learned when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” says Seutin, when we meet in the city after a performance. Her father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before relocating to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she established her company Vocab Dance. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a child, and move along in the home.

Melodies of liberation … Miriam Makeba sings at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in medical care in London. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was constantly asking for Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were singing together,” she recalls. “I had so much time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” As well as learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in the year, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she discovered that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that her child the girl died in labor in 1985, and that due to her banishment she could not be present at her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” states the choreographer.

Creation and Concepts

These reflections went into the making of the show (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was successful, but the concept for the piece was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, Seutin highlights elements of her life story like memories, and nods more generally to the theme of uprooting and loss nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the performance, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “And we gather as these other selves of personas linked with the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear possessed by rhythm, in harmony with the musicians on stage. Seutin’s dance composition includes various forms of movement she has absorbed over the time, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like the form.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

She was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group didn’t already know about the artist. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “I think she would inspire young people to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” remarks the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” She wanted to take the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe movement and listen to beautiful songs, an aspect of enjoyment, but intertwined with strong messages and instances that resonate. That’s what I respect about her. Because if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she achieved it in a manner that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

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