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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a royal figure,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Called the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also spent time in New York with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in Johannesburg, she later served as an envoy for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the UN. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a activist. This rich life and legacy inspire the choreographer’s latest work, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges dance, live music, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that isn’t a simple biography but draws on her past, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, Makeba was barred from South Africa for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was excluded from the US after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The performance resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, some festivity, part provocation – with the exceptional vocalist the performer at the centre reviving her music to vibrant life.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an under-the-radar venue for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually presided over by a shebeen queen. Her parent Christina was a shebeen queen who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina went to prison for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life began – just one of the things Seutin learned when studying her story. “Numerous tales!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in the city after a show. Seutin’s parent is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before relocating to study and work in the UK, where she established her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and move along in the living room.

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

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for a quarter to take care of her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were singing together,” she recalls. “There was ample time to pass at the facility so I began investigating.” As well as learning of her victorious homecoming to South Africa in the year, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), 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 because of her exile she hadn’t been able to attend her own mother’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you look at their success and you overlook that they are facing challenges like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts contributed to the making of the show (premiered in Brussels in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. 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 explicit in the show, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “And we gather as these other selves of personas linked with the icon to greet this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in the show.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s local drink, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the musicians on the platform. Seutin’s choreography incorporates various forms of dance she has learned over the time, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including urban dances like the form.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover Mama Africa? “I think she would motivate young people to stand for what they are, speaking the truth,” remarks the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a beautiful song.” Seutin aimed to take the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe movement and listen to melodies, an element of entertainment, but mixed with strong messages and instances that hit. This is what I respect about her. Because if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• The performance is at London, the dates