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“If you talk about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a queen,” remarks the choreographer. Called the Empress of African Song, Makeba additionally associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a teenager sent to work to support her family in the city, she eventually became a diplomat for the nation, then the country’s representative to the United Nations. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was married to a Black Panther. Her rich life and legacy motivate the choreographer’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, set for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen combines movement, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a simple biography but utilizes her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after relocating to the city in the year, Makeba was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was banned from the US after marrying activist her spouse. The show resembles a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, part celebration, some challenge – with a exceptional South African singer the performer at the centre reviving her music to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an under-the-radar venue for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Her parent Christina was a shebeen queen who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina was incarcerated for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the details Seutin learned when researching Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” says Seutin, when we meet in the city after a show. Seutin’s father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before relocating to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she established her company Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

Songs of freedom … the artist sings at the venue in the year.

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in hospital in London. “I stopped working for three months to take care of her and she was always asking for Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were singing together,” she remembers. “I had so much time to pass at the hospital so I started researching.” As well as reading about 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 era), Seutin found that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that her child the girl passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that due to her banishment she could not be present at her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you forget that they are struggling like anyone else,” says Seutin.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts contributed to the making of the production (first staged in the city in the year). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was effective, but the concept for the work was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like memories, and nods more broadly to the theme of uprooting and loss nowadays. While it’s not explicit in the show, she had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters linked with Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the multi-talented dancers appear taken over by beat, in harmony with the players on the platform. Seutin’s dance composition includes various forms of movement she has learned over the time, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including urban dances like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the group didn’t already know about the artist. (Makeba died in 2008 after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover the legend? “I think she would motivate young people to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” says the choreographer. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something meaningful and then sing a beautiful song.” She aimed to adopt the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe dancing and hear beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but mixed with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. That’s what I admire about her. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They back away. But she achieved it in a way that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is at the city, 22-24 October