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“If you talk about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s similar to talking about a sovereign,” remarks the choreographer. Known as Mama Africa, Makeba also spent time in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a teenager sent to work to support her family in Johannesburg, she eventually became a diplomat for Ghana, then the country’s representative to the UN. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. This rich life and legacy inspire the choreographer’s latest work, the performance, set for its British debut.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show merges dance, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, especially her story of exile: after moving to the city in the year, she was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was banned from the United States after marrying Black Panther activist her spouse. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, part celebration, part provocation – with a fabulous vocalist the performer at the centre reviving Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial venue for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, often presided over by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was a newborn. Incapable of covering the penalty, Christina was incarcerated for six months, bringing her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life began – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when researching her story. “So many stories!” exclaims she, when they met in the city after a show. Her father is Belgian and she was raised there before relocating to study and work in the UK, where she established her dance group Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and move along in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in London. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” Seutin remembers. “I had so much time to pass at the facility so I began investigating.” As well as reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to South Africa in 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the era), Seutin discovered that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in labor in 1985, and that due to her exile she hadn’t been able to 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.

Development and Themes

These reflections went into the creation of the production (premiered in the city in the year). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was effective, but the idea for the piece was to honor “death, life and mourning”. In this context, Seutin pulls out elements of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. While it’s not explicit in the performance, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of personas linked with Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s local drink, the skilled dancers appear taken over by rhythm, in synthesis with the players on stage. Her dance composition includes various forms of movement she has learned over the years, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including urban dances like krump.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group were unaware about the artist. (Makeba died in the year after having a cardiac event on the platform in the country.) Why should younger generations learn about the legend? “I think she would motivate young people to advocate what they are, speaking the truth,” remarks Seutin. “However she did it very gracefully. She’d say something meaningful and then sing a lovely melody.” Seutin aimed to adopt the similar method in this work. “We see dancing and listen to beautiful songs, an aspect of entertainment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and moments that resonate. That’s what I admire about Miriam. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a manner that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• The performance is at the city, the dates