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“If you talk about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” remarks the choreographer. Known as the Empress of African Song, Makeba additionally associated in New York with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Beginning as a teenager sent to work to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then the country’s representative to the United Nations. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was married to a activist. Her rich life and legacy motivate Seutin’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its British debut.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show merges movement, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but draws on her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in 1959, Makeba was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was excluded from the United States after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance is like a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with the exceptional South African singer Tutu Puoane leading bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and animated discussions, usually presided over 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, bringing her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey started – just one of the things Seutin learned when studying Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in Brussels after a show. Her parent is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she established her company the ensemble. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and move along in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for three months to take care of her and she was always asking for Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were singing together,” Seutin recalls. “There was ample time to pass at the facility so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the era), Seutin found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter the girl died in childbirth in the year, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her own mother’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their success and you forget that they are facing challenges like anyone else,” says the choreographer.

Creation and Concepts

All these thoughts contributed to the creation of the show (premiered in the city in the year). Fortunately, her parent’s treatment was successful, but the concept for the work was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, Seutin pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like memories, and nods more broadly to the theme of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the show, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters linked with Miriam Makeba to welcome this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by rhythm, in synthesis with the players on the platform. Her dance composition incorporates multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the years, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast were unaware about the singer. (Makeba died in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in the country.) Why should younger generations discover the legend? “I think she would inspire the youth to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” remarks Seutin. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something poignant and then sing a lovely melody.” Seutin aimed to take the same approach in this work. “We see movement and hear beautiful songs, an aspect of entertainment, but mixed with strong messages and instances that hit. That’s what I respect about her. Since if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They retreat. But she did it in a manner that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is at the city, 22-24 October