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“If you talk about the legendary singer in South Africa, it’s similar to talking about a royal figure,” remarks Alesandra Seutin. Called Mama Africa, the iconic artist also associated in Greenwich Village with renowned musicians like prominent artists. Beginning as a young person dispatched to labor to support her family in Johannesburg, she eventually became a diplomat for the nation, then the country’s official delegate to the UN. An vocal anti-apartheid activist, she was the wife to a activist. Her rich life and legacy inspire the choreographer’s new production, the performance, set for its UK premiere.

The Fusion of Dance, Music, and Spoken Word

The show combines dance, instrumental performances, and spoken word in a theatrical piece that isn’t a simple biography but draws on Makeba’s history, especially her experience of banishment: after relocating to the city in the year, Makeba was barred from her homeland for three decades due to her anti-apartheid stance. Subsequently, she was excluded from the US after marrying Black Panther activist her spouse. The performance resembles a ceremonial tribute, a reimagined memorial – part eulogy, part celebration, part provocation – with the fabulous South African singer the performer at the centre reviving Makeba’s songs to dynamic existence.

Strength and elegance … Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the country, a shebeen is an unofficial gathering place for locally made drinks and lively conversation, often managed by a host. Her parent Christina was a proprietress who was detained for illegally brewing alcohol when Makeba was a newborn. Unable to pay the penalty, Christina went to prison for six months, taking her baby with her, which is how Miriam’s eventful life started – just one of the details the choreographer discovered when studying her story. “So many stories!” says Seutin, when they met in the city after a show. Her parent is from Belgium and she mainly grew up there before relocating to learn and labor in the United Kingdom, where she founded her dance group the ensemble. Her South African mother would perform Makeba’s songs, such as Pata Pata and Malaika, when she was a youngster, and move along in the living room.

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 the city. “I paused my career for a quarter to take care of her and she was always asking for the singer. It delighted her when we were performing as one,” she remembers. “There was ample time to kill at the hospital so I started researching.” As well as reading about Makeba’s triumphant return to the nation in the year, after the freedom of Nelson Mandela (whom she had met when he was a young lawyer in the era), she found that she had been a breast cancer survivor in her youth, that Makeba’s daughter Bongi passed away in labor in the year, and that because of her exile she hadn’t been able to be present at her own mother’s memorial. “You see people and you focus on their achievements and you overlook that they are struggling like everyone,” states the choreographer.

Development and Themes

All these thoughts went into the making of the production (premiered in the city in 2023). Thankfully, her parent’s therapy was successful, but the idea for the work was to honor “death, life and mourning”. In this context, she highlights elements of Makeba’s biography like flashbacks, and references more generally to the theme of displacement and dispossession today. Although it’s not overt in the show, she had in mind a additional character, a modern-day Miriam who is a migrant. “And we gather as these other selves of personas linked with the icon to welcome this young migrant.”

Rhythms of exile … performers in Mimi’s Shebeen.

In the show, rather than being inebriated by the venue’s home-brew, the multi-talented performers appear possessed by rhythm, in synthesis with the players on stage. Her choreography includes various forms of dance she has absorbed over the time, including from African nations, plus the international cast’ own vocabularies, including urban dances like the form.

A celebration of resilience … Alesandra Seutin.

Seutin was surprised to find that some of the younger, non-South Africans in the cast didn’t already know about the artist. (She died in 2008 after having a cardiac event on the platform in Italy.) Why should new audiences learn about Mama Africa? “In my view she would motivate the youth to advocate what they believe in, expressing honesty,” says the choreographer. “However she did it very gracefully. She expressed something poignant and then perform a lovely melody.” She wanted to adopt the same approach in this work. “We see dancing and listen to melodies, an element of enjoyment, but intertwined with strong messages and instances that hit. That’s what I respect about her. Since if you are shouting too much, people won’t listen. They back away. But she achieved it in a way that you would receive it, and hear it, but still be blessed by her ability.”

• The performance is at London, the dates