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“If you talk about the legendary singer in the nation, it’s like speaking about a royal figure,” explains Alesandra Seutin. Known as the Empress of African Song, Makeba additionally associated in Greenwich Village with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a teenager sent to work to provide for her relatives in the city, she later served as an envoy for the nation, then Guinea’s official delegate to the UN. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a activist. Her rich story and impact inspire the choreographer’s latest work, the performance, scheduled for its British debut.

A Blend of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show merges dance, instrumental performances, and oral storytelling in a stage work that isn’t a straightforward biodrama but draws on her past, particularly her experience of banishment: after moving to the city in the year, Makeba was barred from South Africa for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after wedding activist Stokely Carmichael. The performance is like a ceremonial tribute, a deconstructed funeral – part eulogy, part celebration, some challenge – with the fabulous vocalist Tutu Puoane at the centre reviving Makeba’s songs to vibrant life.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an under-the-radar gathering place for home-brewed liquor and animated discussions, often managed by a host. Makeba’s mother the matriarch was a shebeen queen who was arrested for producing drinks without permission when Miriam was a newborn. Incapable of covering the fine, Christina was incarcerated for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the things Seutin learned when researching her story. “Numerous tales!” says she, when we meet in Brussels after a performance. Seutin’s parent is Belgian and she mainly grew up there before relocating to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she established her dance group the ensemble. Her South African mother would perform her music, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and dance to them in the home.

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

A ten years back, Seutin’s mother had cancer and was in medical care in London. “I paused my career for three months to look after her and she was constantly asking for Miriam Makeba. It delighted her when we were singing together,” she recalls. “I had so much time to kill at the facility so I started researching.” 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 1950s), Seutin found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi died in labor in the year, and that due to her exile she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s memorial. “Observing individuals and you look at their achievements and you forget that they are struggling like everyone,” states Seutin.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts went into the creation of the production (first staged in the city in 2023). Thankfully, Seutin’s mother’s treatment was effective, but the concept for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, she highlights threads of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and nods more broadly to the idea of displacement and dispossession today. While it’s not explicit in the show, Seutin had in mind a second protagonist, a contemporary version who is a migrant. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of characters linked with Miriam Makeba to welcome this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in the show.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented dancers appear possessed by beat, in harmony with the musicians on stage. Her choreography includes multiple styles of dance she has absorbed over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ personal styles, including urban dances like the form.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast were unaware about the singer. (She died in the year after having a cardiac event on the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate young people to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” remarks the choreographer. “However she accomplished this very gracefully. She’d say something meaningful and then perform a beautiful song.” She wanted to adopt the same approach in this work. “Audiences observe dancing and hear melodies, an aspect of entertainment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and moments that resonate. This is what I respect about Miriam. Because if you are shouting too much, people may ignore. They back away. Yet she did it in a manner that you would receive it, and understand it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• The performance is showing in London, the dates