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“Discussing about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a queen,” remarks Alesandra Seutin. Called Mama Africa, Makeba also associated in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like prominent artists. Beginning as a young person sent to work to support her family in the city, she later served as an envoy for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An outspoken campaigner against segregation, she was married to a Black Panther. This remarkable story and impact inspire the choreographer’s latest work, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show combines movement, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a simple biography but draws on her past, especially her story of exile: after moving to the city in 1959, Makeba was prohibited from South Africa for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was excluded from the United States after marrying Black Panther activist her spouse. The performance is like a ceremonial tribute, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, part celebration, some challenge – with a exceptional South African singer the performer at the centre reviving her music to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In the country, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and animated discussions, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was a newborn. Unable to pay the penalty, she went to prison for half a year, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey began – just one of the things Seutin learned when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” says she, when they met in the city after a performance. Seutin’s father is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before moving to learn and labor in the UK, where she established her company Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would sing Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when Seutin was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in hospital in London. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was always asking for the singer. She was so happy when we were singing together,” she recalls. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in the year, after the release of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), Seutin found that Makeba 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 exile she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s memorial. “You see people and you focus on their success and you forget that they are struggling like anyone else,” states Seutin.

Development and Concepts

These reflections went into the creation of the show (premiered in the city in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was successful, but the concept for the piece was to celebrate “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, she highlights threads of her life story like memories, and nods more broadly to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. While it’s not explicit in the performance, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “And we gather as these alter egos of characters linked with Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by rhythm, in synthesis with the musicians on stage. Seutin’s choreography incorporates various forms of movement she has learned over the time, including from African nations, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including urban dances like krump.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

She was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the group were unaware about the singer. (Makeba died in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire the youth to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” says Seutin. “But she accomplished this very elegantly. She’d say something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” Seutin wanted to adopt the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe movement and hear melodies, an element of entertainment, but intertwined with strong messages and moments that resonate. This is what I respect about her. Since if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They back away. Yet she did it in a manner that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• Mimi’s Shebeen is at the city, the dates