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“If you talk about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a royal figure,” states Alesandra Seutin. Called the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also associated in New York with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a young person sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she eventually became a diplomat for the nation, then the country’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was married to a Black Panther. Her remarkable life and legacy motivate Seutin’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show combines movement, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that isn’t a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was excluded from the US after wedding Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with the fabulous vocalist Tutu Puoane at the centre bringing her music to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually presided over by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina went to prison for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life began – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when studying her story. “So many stories!” says Seutin, when they met in the city after a show. Seutin’s father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before relocating to learn and labor in the UK, where she established her dance group Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a child, and move along in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … the artist sings at the venue in the year.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to look after her and she was always requesting the singer. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “I had so much time to pass at the facility so I started researching.” As well as learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to South Africa in the year, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that her child the girl died in labor in the year, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to be present at her parent’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you overlook that they are struggling like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts went into the creation of the production (premiered in the city in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was effective, but the idea for the piece was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. In this context, she highlights threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the theme of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the show, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters linked with the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in the show.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s local drink, the skilled performers appear possessed by beat, in harmony with the players on stage. Seutin’s dance composition incorporates various forms of movement she has learned over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including street styles like krump.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba died in 2008 after having a cardiac event on the platform in Italy.) Why should younger generations learn about Mama Africa? “I think she would inspire the youth to stand for what they are, speaking the truth,” remarks Seutin. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something meaningful and then sing a beautiful song.” She aimed to take the similar method in this work. “We see dancing and listen to melodies, an aspect of enjoyment, but intertwined with strong messages and instances that hit. This is what I respect about Miriam. Since if you are being overly loud, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a manner that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be graced by her ability.”

• The performance is showing in the city, the dates