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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a royal figure,” remarks Alesandra Seutin. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist additionally associated in New York with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a young person dispatched to labor to provide for her relatives in the city, she later became a diplomat for the nation, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was the wife to a Black Panther. Her rich story and impact motivate Seutin’s new production, the performance, scheduled for its UK premiere.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

Mimi’s Shebeen combines movement, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but draws on her past, especially her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, she was prohibited from her homeland for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was excluded from the United States after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – some praise, part celebration, part provocation – with a exceptional vocalist the performer at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an under-the-radar gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often presided over by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was a newborn. Incapable of covering the penalty, Christina went to prison for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s remarkable journey started – just one of the details Seutin learned when studying Makeba’s life. “So many stories!” says she, when they met in Brussels after a performance. Seutin’s father is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before relocating to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her company the ensemble. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when she was a youngster, and dance to them in the living room.

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

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in hospital in the city. “I stopped working for three months to look after her and she was always requesting the singer. She was so happy when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to South Africa in 1990, after the release of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a legal professional in the 1950s), she discovered that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that her child the girl passed away in labor in the year, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you overlook that they are struggling like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Creation and Concepts

These reflections went into the making of the show (first staged in the city in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the work was to celebrate “death, life and mourning”. Within that, Seutin highlights threads of Makeba’s biography like memories, and nods more generally to the theme of uprooting and loss today. Although it’s not overt in the performance, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of characters linked with Miriam Makeba to welcome this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in the show.

In the performance, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled dancers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the players on the platform. Her dance composition includes multiple styles of movement she has absorbed over the time, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including street styles like krump.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the newer, international in the group didn’t already know about the singer. (Makeba passed away in the year after having a heart attack on stage in Italy.) Why should new audiences discover the legend? “I think she would inspire young people to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says the choreographer. “But she did it very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then sing a lovely melody.” Seutin wanted to adopt the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe dancing and listen to melodies, an aspect of enjoyment, but mixed with strong messages and moments that hit. That’s what I admire about her. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be graced by her talent.”

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