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“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a sovereign,” states the choreographer. Called Mama Africa, Makeba additionally associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager sent to work to support her family in the city, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the UN. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was married to a activist. Her remarkable life and legacy motivate the choreographer’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

The Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show combines movement, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a theatrical piece that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but utilizes her past, particularly her story of exile: after moving to New York in 1959, she was barred from South Africa for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was banned from the US after marrying Black Panther activist her spouse. The performance 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 reviving her music to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In the country, a informal gathering spot is an under-the-radar venue for locally made drinks and lively conversation, often managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was a newborn. Unable to pay the fine, she went to prison for half a year, bringing her baby with her, which is how her eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when studying her story. “So many stories!” exclaims Seutin, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Seutin’s parent is from Belgium and she was raised there before relocating to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she established her dance group the ensemble. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a youngster, and dance to them in the living room.

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

A ten years back, her parent had cancer and was in medical care in the city. “I stopped working for a quarter to look after her and she was constantly asking for the singer. It delighted her 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 learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (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 Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in childbirth in the year, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to attend her own mother’s memorial. “You see people and you look at their success and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Development and Themes

These reflections went into the creation of the show (premiered in Brussels in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was effective, but the idea for the piece was to honor “death, life and mourning”. In this context, Seutin highlights threads of Makeba’s biography like memories, and references more broadly to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the show, she had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “And we gather as these alter egos of characters connected to Miriam Makeba to welcome this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear possessed by beat, in harmony with the musicians on stage. Seutin’s dance composition includes multiple styles of movement she has absorbed over the time, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ personal styles, including street styles like krump.

Honoring strength … the creator.

She was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group were unaware about the singer. (Makeba died in 2008 after having a cardiac event on the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “I think she would motivate the youth to stand for what they are, expressing honesty,” remarks Seutin. “However she did it very elegantly. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a lovely melody.” She wanted to adopt the same approach in this work. “Audiences observe dancing and listen to beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and moments that resonate. That’s what I respect about Miriam. Since if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They retreat. Yet she did it in a manner that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

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