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“If you talk about Miriam Makeba in South Africa, it’s like speaking about a queen,” remarks the choreographer. Known as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also associated in New York with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Starting as a young person sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she eventually served as an envoy for Ghana, then Guinea’s official delegate to the United Nations. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was married to a Black Panther. This rich story and impact motivate the choreographer’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, scheduled for its British debut.

A Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges dance, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that is not a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in the year, she was barred from South Africa for three decades due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was excluded from the US after wedding activist her spouse. The show is like a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, some festivity, some challenge – with the exceptional South African singer the performer leading reviving her music to vibrant life.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar gathering place for home-brewed liquor and lively conversation, often managed by a shebeen queen. Her parent the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was arrested for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was 18 days old. Unable to pay the penalty, she was incarcerated for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how her remarkable journey began – just one of the things Seutin discovered when researching Makeba’s life. “Numerous tales!” exclaims she, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Her father is Belgian and she was raised there before moving to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her dance group Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when Seutin was a youngster, and move along in the home.

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

A decade ago, her parent had the illness and was in medical care in the city. “I paused my career for a quarter to take care of her and she was always requesting Miriam Makeba. She was so happy when we were singing together,” Seutin recalls. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” In addition to learning of Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in the year, after the freedom of the leader (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the era), Seutin discovered that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in labor in 1985, and that because of her banishment she could not be present at her own mother’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you focus on their achievements and you overlook that they are struggling like anyone else,” states the choreographer.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the creation of the production (first staged in Brussels in the year). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the piece was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. Within that, Seutin pulls out threads of her life story like flashbacks, and nods more broadly to the theme of displacement and dispossession today. Although it’s not explicit in the show, she had in mind a second protagonist, a modern-day Miriam who is a traveler. “And we gather as these other selves of characters connected to the icon to greet this newcomer.”

Melodies of banishment … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the shebeen’s home-brew, the multi-talented performers appear taken over by rhythm, in harmony with the players on stage. Her choreography incorporates various forms of movement she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including urban dances like krump.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

She was surprised to find that some of the newer, international in the group didn’t already know about the artist. (Makeba died in the year after having a heart attack on the platform in Italy.) Why should younger generations learn about the legend? “I think she would motivate young people to advocate what they are, speaking the truth,” remarks Seutin. “But she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed something meaningful and then sing a lovely melody.” She aimed to adopt the same approach in this production. “Audiences observe dancing and listen to beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but mixed with strong messages and instances that hit. That’s what I respect about her. Because if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They back away. Yet she did it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her talent.”

• The performance is showing in London, 22-24 October