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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a queen,” remarks Alesandra Seutin. Called Mama Africa, the iconic artist additionally associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Beginning as a young person sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then the country’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was married to a activist. This remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show combines movement, live music, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, especially her story of exile: after relocating to New York in 1959, Makeba was barred from her homeland for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was excluded from the US after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, part celebration, some challenge – with the fabulous vocalist the performer leading bringing Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Power and poise … the production.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an under-the-radar venue for locally made drinks and animated discussions, usually managed by a host. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina went to prison for half a year, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when studying Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” says Seutin, when they met in the city after a performance. Seutin’s father is Belgian and she was raised there before relocating to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she founded her dance group Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … the artist sings at the venue in 1988.

A decade ago, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in London. “I stopped working for a quarter to look after her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to pass at the facility so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to the nation in 1990, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), Seutin discovered that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to attend her own mother’s funeral. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” states Seutin.

Creation and Concepts

These reflections contributed to the making of the show (premiered in the city in the year). Fortunately, her parent’s treatment was effective, but the concept for the work was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, Seutin pulls out threads of her life story like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the theme 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 traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters connected to the icon to welcome this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear possessed by rhythm, in harmony with the players on the platform. Her dance composition includes multiple styles of movement she has learned over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including urban dances like krump.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

She was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba died in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire young people to advocate what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something poignant and then perform a beautiful song.” Seutin wanted to adopt the similar method in this production. “Audiences observe dancing and listen to beautiful songs, an aspect of entertainment, but intertwined with strong messages and instances that hit. This is what I respect about Miriam. Since if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They back away. Yet she achieved it in a manner that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in London, the dates