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“If you talk 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, Makeba additionally spent time in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in the city, she later served as an envoy for the nation, then the country’s representative to the UN. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her remarkable story and impact inspire the choreographer’s latest work, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show merges dance, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to New York in the year, she was barred from her homeland for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the United States after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The show is like a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with a fabulous South African singer Tutu Puoane at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an unofficial gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, usually presided over by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a proprietress who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Incapable of covering the fine, she was incarcerated for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the things the choreographer learned when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” says she, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Her father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her parent would perform her music, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a child, and move along in the living room.

Songs of freedom … the artist performs at Wembley Stadium in the year.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in hospital in London. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was constantly asking for Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were singing together,” she remembers. “I had so much time to kill at the facility so I started researching.” In addition to reading about her victorious homecoming to the nation in the year, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she found that she had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter the girl passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you forget that they are struggling like anyone else,” states Seutin.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts contributed to the creation of the show (first staged in the city in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was successful, but the idea for the work was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, she pulls out threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and references more broadly to the idea of uprooting and loss today. Although it’s not explicit in the show, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters linked with the icon to greet this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the players on the platform. Seutin’s dance composition incorporates multiple styles of movement she has learned over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like krump.

A celebration of resilience … the creator.

She was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast were unaware about the artist. (Makeba died in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire young people to advocate what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says Seutin. “But she did it very gracefully. She’d say something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” She aimed to take the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe movement and listen to melodies, an element of enjoyment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and moments that resonate. This is 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 way that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be graced by her ability.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at London, 22-24 October