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“Discussing about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s like speaking about a queen,” states Alesandra Seutin. Called the Empress of African Song, Makeba also associated in New York with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting 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 UN. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was married to a activist. This remarkable story and impact motivate the choreographer’s latest work, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

The Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show combines movement, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that is not a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, she was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was excluded from the United States after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, part celebration, part provocation – with the fabulous vocalist the performer at the centre reviving her music to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … the production.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and animated discussions, usually presided over by a host. Her parent the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the penalty, she went to prison for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey began – just one of the details the choreographer learned when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” says she, when we meet in the city after a show. Her parent is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her parent would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and move along in the living room.

Songs of freedom … the artist performs at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

A decade ago, her parent had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was constantly requesting the singer. She was so happy when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “I had so much time to kill at the facility so I started researching.” As well as learning of her victorious homecoming to the nation in 1990, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), Seutin discovered that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her teens, that her child Bongi passed away in labor in the year, and that because of her banishment she could not be present at her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you overlook that they are struggling like everyone,” says Seutin.

Development and Themes

These reflections went into the making of the show (first staged in Brussels in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was successful, but the concept for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, she pulls out elements of her life story like memories, and nods more broadly to the idea of uprooting and loss today. Although it’s not overt in the show, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters connected to 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 home-brew, the skilled dancers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the players on stage. Seutin’s dance composition incorporates multiple styles of movement she has learned over the time, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … the creator.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the group didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a heart attack on stage in Italy.) Why should younger generations discover the legend? “I think she would motivate the youth to stand for what they are, speaking the truth,” remarks Seutin. “However she did it very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” Seutin wanted to adopt the similar method in this production. “We see dancing and hear beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but intertwined with strong messages and moments that hit. That’s what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They back away. But she achieved it in a manner that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at the city, the dates