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“If you talk about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a royal figure,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Known as Mama Africa, Makeba additionally associated in New York with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in the city, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was married to a activist. This rich story and impact motivate Seutin’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

The Blend of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines movement, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, especially her story of exile: after moving to the city in the year, she was barred from her homeland for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was excluded from the US after wedding activist her spouse. The show resembles a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with a exceptional South African singer Tutu Puoane at the centre reviving Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Power and poise … the production.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and animated discussions, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a proprietress who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was a newborn. Unable to pay the penalty, she was incarcerated for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how her 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 parent is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to study and work in the UK, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her South African mother would perform her music, such as the tunes, when she was a youngster, and move along in the home.

Songs of freedom … Miriam Makeba performs at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in the city. “I stopped working for three months to look after her and she was always asking for Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were singing together,” she recalls. “I had so much time to pass at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to South Africa in the year, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a legal professional in the era), she found that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her teens, that Makeba’s daughter the girl died in labor in 1985, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to be present at her parent’s memorial. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” states the choreographer.

Creation and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the making of the production (premiered in Brussels in the year). Fortunately, 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 memories, and references more generally to the theme 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 other selves of personas connected to Miriam Makeba to greet this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in the show.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the multi-talented dancers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the musicians on the platform. Her dance composition incorporates various forms of movement she has learned over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including street styles like the form.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

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 died in the year after having a heart attack on stage in Italy.) Why should younger generations discover the legend? “In my view she would inspire young people to stand for what they are, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “But she did it very elegantly. She’d say something meaningful and then sing a lovely melody.” Seutin aimed to take the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe dancing and listen to beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but intertwined with strong messages and instances that resonate. This is what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be graced by her talent.”

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