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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a sovereign,” states the choreographer. Called Mama Africa, Makeba additionally associated in New York with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a young person sent to work to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she later served as an envoy for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the UN. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was married to a activist. Her remarkable life and legacy motivate Seutin’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen combines dance, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, she was prohibited from her homeland for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the United States after marrying Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael. The show is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, part celebration, some challenge – with a exceptional vocalist the performer at the centre reviving her music to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial venue for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often managed by a host. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Miriam was a newborn. Unable to pay the penalty, she went to prison for half a year, bringing her infant with her, which is how her eventful life started – just one of the things the choreographer learned when researching her story. “So many stories!” exclaims she, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Her parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before relocating to learn and labor in the UK, where she established her dance group Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in London. “I paused my career for three months to take care of her and she was always asking for Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “I had so much time to pass at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), Seutin found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in labor in 1985, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s memorial. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Creation and Themes

All these thoughts went into the making of the show (premiered in the city in the year). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the piece was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. Within that, Seutin pulls out elements of Makeba’s biography like memories, and nods more broadly to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the performance, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “And we gather as these other selves of characters linked with the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear possessed by beat, in harmony with the players on stage. Her dance composition incorporates various forms of movement she has absorbed over the years, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group didn’t already know about the singer. (She passed away in 2008 after having a cardiac event on stage in the country.) Why should younger generations learn about the legend? “In my view she would motivate the youth to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says Seutin. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then sing a beautiful song.” Seutin aimed to take the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe movement and hear beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. That’s what I respect about her. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They back away. Yet she achieved it in a manner that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is showing in the city, the dates