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“When you speak about Miriam Makeba in the nation, it’s akin to referring about a queen,” remarks Alesandra Seutin. Called the Empress of African Song, the iconic artist also spent time in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. Beginning as a teenager dispatched to labor to support her family in the city, she eventually served as an envoy for Ghana, then the country’s representative to the UN. An vocal campaigner against segregation, she was married to a activist. This remarkable story and impact inspire the choreographer’s new production, the performance, set for its British debut.

A Fusion of Movement, Sound, and Narration

The show merges movement, live music, and spoken word in a stage work that isn’t a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, particularly her experience of banishment: after relocating to New York in the year, she was barred from South Africa for 30 years due to her opposition to segregation. Later, she was banned from the US after wedding activist her spouse. The show is like a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – some praise, some festivity, some challenge – with a fabulous South African singer Tutu Puoane at the centre reviving her music to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … the production.

In South Africa, a informal gathering spot is an under-the-radar venue for locally made drinks and animated discussions, often managed 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. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina went to prison for six months, taking her infant with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when studying her story. “Numerous tales!” says Seutin, when they met in the city after a show. Seutin’s father is from Belgium and she was raised there before relocating to learn and labor in the UK, where she established her company Vocab Dance. Her South African mother would perform Makeba’s songs, such as the tunes, when she was a child, and move along in the living room.

Songs of freedom … the artist performs at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

A decade ago, Seutin’s mother had the illness and was in hospital in London. “I stopped working for a quarter to take care of her and she was constantly asking for the singer. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” Seutin remembers. “There was ample time to pass at the facility so I started researching.” As well as reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in the year, after the release of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the era), Seutin discovered that Makeba had been a someone who overcame illness in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in labor in 1985, and that due to her banishment she hadn’t been able to attend her parent’s funeral. “Observing individuals and you look at their success and you forget that they are facing challenges like everyone,” says the choreographer.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts went into the creation of the production (premiered in the city in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the piece was to honor “death, life and mourning”. Within that, Seutin highlights elements of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and references more generally to the idea of displacement and dispossession nowadays. Although it’s not overt in the show, she had in mind a additional character, a contemporary version who is a traveler. “Together, we assemble as these alter egos of personas linked with the icon to greet this young migrant.”

Melodies of banishment … musicians in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being intoxicated by the venue’s local drink, the multi-talented dancers appear possessed by rhythm, in harmony with the players on the platform. Her choreography includes various forms of movement she has learned over the years, including from Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, plus the global performers’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like the form.

Honoring strength … Alesandra Seutin.

She was taken aback to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the group didn’t already know about the singer. (She passed away in the year after having a cardiac event on stage in the country.) Why should new audiences learn about the legend? “In my view she would motivate young people to stand for what they believe in, speaking the truth,” says Seutin. “But she accomplished this very elegantly. She expressed 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 aspect of entertainment, but intertwined with powerful ideas and instances that hit. That’s what I admire about her. Because if you are being overly loud, people won’t listen. They retreat. Yet she did it in a way that you would accept it, and understand it, but still be graced by her talent.”

• The performance is at London, the dates