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“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” states the choreographer. Known as Mama Africa, Makeba also spent time in New York with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a young person sent to work to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she eventually served as an envoy for Ghana, then the country’s official delegate to the United Nations. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was married to a Black Panther. This remarkable life and legacy motivate Seutin’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

The Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show merges dance, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but draws on her past, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, she was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was excluded from the US after marrying activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ceremonial tribute, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with the fabulous South African singer the performer leading bringing her music to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, usually presided over by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, she went to prison for half a year, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the things Seutin discovered when researching her story. “So many stories!” says Seutin, when they met in Brussels after a show. Her father is Belgian and she was raised there before relocating to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would perform her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to look after her and she was always asking for Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” As well as learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in the year, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), Seutin found that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that her child Bongi passed away in childbirth in the year, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you look at their achievements and you overlook that they are facing challenges like anyone else,” states the choreographer.

Development and Themes

These reflections contributed to the making of the production (first staged in the city in the year). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. In this context, Seutin highlights threads of Makeba’s biography like memories, and nods more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession today. Although it’s not explicit in the show, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “And we gather as these alter egos of personas connected to Miriam Makeba to welcome this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the skilled dancers appear possessed by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on stage. Her choreography includes multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the years, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including urban dances like the form.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

She was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the group didn’t already know 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 Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire young people to stand for what they are, speaking the truth,” says Seutin. “However she did it very gracefully. She expressed something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” She wanted to take the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe movement and hear melodies, an aspect of entertainment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. This is what I admire about Miriam. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They back away. But she did it in a manner that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at London, the dates