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“When you speak about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a queen,” states Alesandra Seutin. Referred to as the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also spent time in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like prominent artists. Starting as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in Johannesburg, she later became a diplomat for Ghana, then Guinea’s representative to the UN. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a Black Panther. This remarkable story and impact motivate Seutin’s new production, Mimi’s Shebeen, 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 utilizes Makeba’s history, particularly her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in 1959, she was prohibited from her homeland for 30 years due to her anti-apartheid stance. Later, she was excluded from the US after wedding activist her spouse. The show resembles a ritual of remembrance, a reimagined memorial – some praise, part celebration, part provocation – with the fabulous South African singer Tutu Puoane at the centre bringing Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Power and poise … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an under-the-radar gathering place for locally made drinks and lively conversation, usually managed by a shebeen queen. Makeba’s mother Christina was a proprietress who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Makeba was a newborn. Unable to pay the penalty, she went to prison for half a year, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer learned when researching her story. “So many stories!” says she, when we meet in Brussels after a show. Seutin’s parent is from Belgium and she was raised there before relocating to study and work in the UK, where she founded her dance group Vocab Dance. Her parent would perform her music, such as the tunes, when she was a youngster, and dance to them in the home.

Melodies of liberation … the artist performs at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in medical care in the city. “I stopped working for three months to look after her and she was constantly asking for the singer. It delighted her when we were singing together,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I began investigating.” In addition to learning of her victorious homecoming to South Africa in 1990, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had encountered when he was a young lawyer in the era), Seutin found that Makeba had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that her child the girl passed away in childbirth in 1985, and that because of her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her own mother’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you focus on their success and you overlook that they are facing challenges like everyone,” says Seutin.

Development and Concepts

All these thoughts went into the creation of the production (first staged in the city in the year). Fortunately, Seutin’s mother’s therapy was effective, but the idea for the piece was to honor “loss, existence, and grief”. In this context, she pulls out threads of her life story like memories, and nods more broadly to the theme of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not explicit in the performance, she had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these other selves of personas linked with Miriam Makeba to greet this newcomer.”

Rhythms of exile … musicians in the show.

In the performance, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s home-brew, the multi-talented dancers appear taken over by beat, in synthesis with the musicians on the platform. Seutin’s choreography includes various forms of dance 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 … the creator.

Seutin 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 heart attack on stage in the country.) Why should new audiences discover Mama Africa? “In my view she would inspire young people to advocate what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says Seutin. “However she did it very gracefully. She’d say something meaningful and then sing a lovely melody.” Seutin aimed to take the similar method in this work. “Audiences observe movement and listen to beautiful songs, an element of entertainment, but mixed with strong messages and moments that hit. That’s what I respect about her. Because if you are being overly loud, people may ignore. They back away. But she did it in a manner that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be graced by her ability.”

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