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“When you speak about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s similar to talking about a sovereign,” remarks Alesandra Seutin. Known as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist additionally spent time in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a young person sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she eventually served as an envoy for the nation, then the country’s official delegate to the UN. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was married to a activist. This rich story and impact inspire the choreographer’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

The Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show merges dance, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, especially her story of exile: after moving to the city in the year, Makeba was prohibited from her homeland for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was banned from the US after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance is like a ritual of remembrance, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, part celebration, some challenge – with a fabulous South African singer the performer at the centre reviving her music to vibrant life.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial venue for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a proprietress who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina was incarcerated for half a year, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the things the choreographer discovered when studying Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” says she, when we meet in the city after a show. Seutin’s father is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and move along in the home.

Melodies of liberation … Miriam Makeba performs at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” Seutin remembers. “I had so much time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” 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 legal professional in the 1950s), she found that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in labor in 1985, and that because of her exile 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 facing challenges like anyone else,” states the choreographer.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts went into the creation of the show (premiered in Brussels in the year). Fortunately, her parent’s therapy was effective, but the concept for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, Seutin highlights elements of her life story like memories, and references more generally to the theme of displacement and dispossession today. Although it’s not explicit in the performance, she had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters connected to the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in the show.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s local drink, the multi-talented dancers appear taken over by beat, in harmony with the musicians on the platform. Her dance composition incorporates multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including street styles like the form.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

She was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the cast didn’t already know about the singer. (She passed away in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in Italy.) Why should younger generations learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate young people to advocate what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks the choreographer. “But she did it very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then sing a beautiful song.” Seutin aimed to adopt the similar method in this production. “Audiences observe movement and hear melodies, an aspect of entertainment, but mixed with strong messages and instances that resonate. That’s what I respect about Miriam. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They back away. Yet she did it in a manner that you would accept it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

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