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“Discussing about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s similar to talking about a royal figure,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Called the Empress of African Song, Makeba additionally associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a young person sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s representative to the UN. An outspoken anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a activist. Her remarkable story and impact inspire Seutin’s new production, the performance, set for its British debut.

The Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show combines movement, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that is not a simple biography but utilizes her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in the year, she was prohibited from South Africa for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was banned from the US after wedding Black Panther activist her spouse. The show is like a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with the exceptional vocalist Tutu Puoane at the centre bringing her music to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and animated discussions, often presided over by a host. Makeba’s mother Christina was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was a newborn. Incapable of covering the penalty, Christina was incarcerated for half a year, bringing her baby with her, which is how her eventful life started – 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 was raised there before relocating to study and work in the United Kingdom, where she established her dance group Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would sing her music, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a child, and move along in the home.

Songs of freedom … the artist performs at the venue in the year.

A ten years back, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in London. “I stopped working for three months to take care of her and she was constantly asking for the singer. She was so happy when we were singing together,” she remembers. “I had so much time to pass at the hospital so I started researching.” As well as reading about her victorious homecoming to South Africa in the year, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the 1950s), she discovered that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in labor in 1985, and that due to her exile she could not be present at her parent’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you look at their achievements and you overlook that they are struggling like anyone else,” says Seutin.

Development and Themes

These reflections went into the making of the production (first staged in the city in 2023). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was effective, but the idea for the work was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, she highlights elements of her life story like flashbacks, and references more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession today. Although it’s not overt in the performance, she had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of personas connected to the icon to greet this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the skilled performers appear possessed by rhythm, in harmony with the players on the platform. Seutin’s choreography includes various forms 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 the form.

Honoring strength … the creator.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group were unaware about the artist. (She died in 2008 after having a heart attack on the platform in Italy.) Why should younger generations discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate the youth to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” remarks Seutin. “However she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” Seutin wanted to take the similar method in this production. “We see dancing and listen to beautiful songs, an element of enjoyment, but intertwined with strong messages and moments that resonate. That’s what I respect 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 blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is at the city, 22-24 October