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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a queen,” explains the choreographer. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, Makeba also associated in New York with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in Johannesburg, she eventually served as an envoy for the nation, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was married to a activist. Her rich story and impact motivate Seutin’s latest work, the performance, set for its British debut.

The Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

Mimi’s Shebeen merges movement, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but utilizes her past, especially her story of exile: after relocating to New York in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the US after marrying activist Stokely Carmichael. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, part provocation – with the fabulous South African singer Tutu Puoane leading bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, often presided over by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the fine, Christina was incarcerated for six months, bringing her baby with her, which is how her eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when researching Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” says she, when we meet in the city after a show. Her parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she established her dance group the ensemble. Her South African mother would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a child, and move along in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in London. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was constantly requesting the singer. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to pass at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to South Africa in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the era), she found that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that her child the girl died in labor in the year, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s funeral. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you overlook that they are struggling like anyone else,” says Seutin.

Development and Concepts

These reflections contributed to the creation of the show (premiered in Brussels in the year). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was effective, but the idea for the work was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and nods more generally to the theme of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the performance, she had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters connected to the icon to welcome this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the skilled dancers appear possessed by beat, in synthesis with the players on stage. Seutin’s dance composition incorporates 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.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

She was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the cast were unaware about the artist. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “I think she would motivate the youth to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then sing a beautiful song.” She aimed to adopt the same approach in this work. “We see movement and hear beautiful songs, an aspect of entertainment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances 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 way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is showing in the city, 22-24 October