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“Discussing about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a queen,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Known as Mama Africa, Makeba also associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a young person dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in Johannesburg, she eventually became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, 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 Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines dance, live music, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her story of exile: after relocating to New York in the year, Makeba was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was excluded from the United States after marrying activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, part celebration, some challenge – with a fabulous vocalist Tutu Puoane leading bringing her music to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … the production.

In the country, a shebeen is an unofficial venue for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often presided over by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was detained for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was 18 days old. Unable to pay the fine, she went to prison for six months, bringing her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey started – just one of the things Seutin learned when studying her story. “Numerous tales!” exclaims she, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Seutin’s parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before moving to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she founded her dance group Vocab Dance. Her parent would sing her music, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in hospital in London. “I paused my career for a quarter to look after her and she was always asking for the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), Seutin found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that her child the girl died in labor in the year, and that because of her banishment 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 anyone else,” says Seutin.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts contributed to the making of the production (premiered in the city in the year). Fortunately, her parent’s treatment was effective, but the idea for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, Seutin pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and references more broadly to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. While it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of personas connected to the icon to welcome this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in the show.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear possessed by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on the platform. Her choreography incorporates various forms of dance she has learned over the years, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … the creator.

Seutin was taken aback 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 the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate young people to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” Seutin wanted to take the same approach in this production. “We see dancing and listen to beautiful songs, an element of enjoyment, but intertwined with strong messages and moments that hit. That’s what I admire about her. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in London, the dates