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“When you speak about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Called the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also spent time in New York 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 the nation, then Guinea’s representative to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was married to a activist. Her remarkable story and impact motivate Seutin’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

The Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines dance, live music, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but utilizes Makeba’s history, especially her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in 1959, Makeba was barred from her homeland for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the United States after marrying activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance resembles a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – some praise, some festivity, part provocation – with a fabulous vocalist the performer leading reviving Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often presided over by a host. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the penalty, she went to prison for half a year, taking her infant with her, which is how her eventful life began – just one of the things Seutin discovered when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” exclaims she, when we meet in the city 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 Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a child, and dance to them in the living room.

Melodies of liberation … the artist sings at the venue in 1988.

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was constantly requesting Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “I had so much time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” As well as reading about her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she found that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that her child the girl died in childbirth in the year, and that because of her banishment she could not attend her parent’s memorial. “You see people and you focus on their success and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” states the choreographer.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts contributed to the making of the production (premiered in Brussels in the year). Thankfully, her parent’s treatment was effective, but the concept for the piece was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, Seutin pulls out elements of her life story like memories, and nods more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the show, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “And we gather as these alter egos of personas connected to the icon to welcome this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in the show.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented dancers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the musicians on the platform. Her choreography incorporates multiple styles of movement she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, 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 singer. (She died in the year after having a cardiac event on the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about the legend? “I think she would motivate young people to advocate what they are, speaking the truth,” remarks Seutin. “But she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something poignant and then sing a lovely melody.” She wanted to take the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe movement and listen to beautiful songs, an aspect of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances that resonate. That’s what I admire about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• The performance is at London, the dates