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“When you speak about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s akin to referring about a queen,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Called Mama Africa, the iconic artist additionally spent time in New York with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in the city, she eventually became a diplomat for the nation, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a activist. This remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s new production, the performance, set for its UK premiere.

The Blend of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen merges movement, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes her past, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to New York in the year, Makeba was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was banned from the US after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, part provocation – with the fabulous South African singer Tutu Puoane leading reviving Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … the production.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was a newborn. Incapable of covering the penalty, Christina was incarcerated for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the details Seutin learned when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” exclaims she, when they met in the city after a performance. Her parent is Belgian and she was raised there before relocating to learn and labor in the UK, where she founded her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a youngster, and move along in the home.

Songs of freedom … Miriam Makeba performs at the venue in 1988.

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in hospital in London. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was constantly requesting Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the facility so I started researching.” As well as reading about her victorious homecoming to the nation in the year, after the release of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she discovered that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that her child the girl died in labor in 1985, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her own mother’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you look at their achievements and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the making of the production (premiered in Brussels in the year). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the piece was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she highlights elements of Makeba’s biography like memories, and nods more broadly to the theme of displacement and dispossession nowadays. While it’s not overt in the show, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of personas connected to the icon to greet this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in the show.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled dancers appear taken over by rhythm, in synthesis with the musicians on the platform. Her dance composition incorporates various forms of dance she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including urban dances like the form.

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

She was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast were unaware about the artist. (She passed away 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,” says the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a lovely melody.” She wanted to adopt the same approach in this work. “We see dancing and hear melodies, an aspect of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. This is what I respect about her. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They back away. Yet she did it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

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