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“Discussing about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a queen,” explains the choreographer. Called the Empress of African Song, Makeba additionally spent time in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she eventually served as an envoy for the nation, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a Black Panther. This rich story and impact inspire Seutin’s latest work, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges dance, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in 1959, she was barred from her homeland for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was banned from the US after marrying Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, part provocation – with the exceptional vocalist the performer at the centre reviving Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar venue for locally made drinks and animated discussions, often managed by a host. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina was incarcerated for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life began – just one of the details Seutin learned when studying Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” says she, when they met in the city after a show. Her parent is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she founded her dance group Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

Melodies of liberation … the artist sings at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to look after her and she was always asking for the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “I had so much time to kill at the facility so I began investigating.” As well as reading about her victorious homecoming to the nation in the year, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the era), she discovered that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in childbirth in 1985, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her own mother’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you overlook that they are struggling like everyone,” states the choreographer.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the creation of the show (first staged in Brussels in 2023). Fortunately, her parent’s treatment was effective, but the concept for the work was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, she pulls out elements of her life story like flashbacks, and references more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession today. Although it’s not overt in the performance, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of personas 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 shebeen’s home-brew, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the players on the platform. Her choreography incorporates multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including street styles like the form.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba died in 2008 after having a heart attack on the platform in the country.) Why should younger generations learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire the youth to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says Seutin. “But she did it very elegantly. She expressed something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” Seutin wanted to adopt the similar method in this production. “We see dancing and listen to melodies, an aspect of entertainment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that hit. That’s what I admire about her. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a manner that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in the city, 22-24 October