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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s akin to referring about a royal figure,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Referred to as Mama Africa, Makeba additionally spent time in New York with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in the city, she later became a diplomat for the nation, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a activist. Her rich life and legacy motivate the choreographer’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its British debut.

A Blend of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges dance, live music, and oral storytelling in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, especially her story of exile: after moving to the city in 1959, she was prohibited from South Africa for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was excluded from the US after marrying activist her spouse. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with the fabulous South African singer Tutu Puoane leading reviving her music to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually managed by a host. Her parent Christina was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was a newborn. Unable to pay the fine, 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 Seutin learned when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” exclaims she, when they met in the city after a show. Her parent is from Belgium and she was raised there before relocating to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company Vocab Dance. Her parent would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the home.

Songs of freedom … Miriam Makeba performs at the venue in the year.

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to look after her and she was constantly requesting the singer. She was so happy when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to pass at the facility so I started researching.” As well as reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation 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 Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in childbirth in the year, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to be present at her own mother’s memorial. “You see people and you look at their success and you overlook that they are struggling like anyone else,” states the choreographer.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts went into the creation of the show (first staged in the city in the year). Fortunately, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the piece was to honor “death, life and mourning”. In this context, Seutin highlights threads of her life story like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the idea of uprooting and loss today. While it’s not explicit in the show, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of characters connected to Miriam Makeba to welcome this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in the show.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the players on stage. Her choreography incorporates various forms of movement she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including street styles like the form.

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group were unaware about the singer. (She passed away in the year after having a cardiac event on the platform in the country.) Why should new audiences learn about the legend? “In my view she would inspire young people to advocate what they believe in, speaking the truth,” remarks the choreographer. “But she did it very gracefully. She’d say something poignant and then sing a beautiful song.” Seutin wanted to take the same approach in this work. “Audiences observe movement and listen to melodies, an aspect of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and moments that hit. That’s what I admire about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she achieved it in a manner that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is at London, the dates