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“Discussing about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a queen,” remarks Alesandra Seutin. Called Mama Africa, Makeba additionally spent time in New York with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Starting as a young person dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she eventually became a diplomat for the nation, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was married to a activist. Her remarkable life and legacy motivate the choreographer’s latest work, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Blend of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges dance, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her story of exile: after relocating to New York in the year, she was barred from South Africa for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was excluded from the United States after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with a fabulous vocalist the performer leading bringing her music to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often managed by a shebeen queen. Her parent Christina was a proprietress who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was a newborn. Unable to pay the fine, Christina was incarcerated for half a year, taking her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when studying her story. “Numerous tales!” says she, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Her father is from Belgium and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor in the UK, where she founded her company Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a child, and move along in the home.

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

A decade ago, her parent had cancer and was in hospital in London. “I stopped working for three months to look after her and she was always requesting the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin recalls. “There was ample time to kill at the facility so I started researching.” As well as learning of her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the era), Seutin found that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter the girl died in labor in the year, and that due to 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 anyone else,” states Seutin.

Creation and Themes

All these thoughts went into the creation of the production (premiered in the city in the year). Fortunately, her parent’s treatment was successful, but the idea for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, she pulls out threads of her life story like flashbacks, and references more generally to the theme of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not explicit in the performance, she had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in the show.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled dancers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the players on stage. Her choreography includes multiple styles of movement she has learned over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like the form.

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

She was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the cast didn’t already know about the artist. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in the country.) Why should new audiences discover the legend? “I think she would motivate young people to advocate what they believe in, speaking the truth,” remarks the choreographer. “But she did it very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then perform a lovely melody.” Seutin aimed to take the similar method in this production. “Audiences observe dancing and hear beautiful songs, an aspect of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. This is what I admire about her. Because if you are being overly loud, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she achieved it in a way that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

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