NEWS

Coincidences merge in Richard's 'Attakapas' encore

Dominick Cross
dcross@theadvertiser.com
Zachary Richard performs during Festival International de Louisiane 2015, in downtown Lafayette.

The opening of Zachary Richard's "Attakapas - The Story of the Cajun People" in March was almost to the day the 250th anniversary of the arrival of the Acadians in the Attakapas country.

On August 31, while Richard visited Grand Pre, Nova Scotia, palisades built around a church there that detained 418 men and boys over 10 years old, were found in an archeological dig.

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"They weren't just in the church, they were in an enclosure, a guarded enclosure that was recently discovered," said Richard. "It was really moving for me because the day that the day that palisade was constructed was Aug. 31."

And come October, the encore performance of Richard's multi-media concert performance at the Acadiana Center for the Arts is the same month 250 years later that Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil died.

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"I didn't plan it," Richard said. "There's a lot of very strange and powerful coincidences having to do with this project."

Richard also recalled a pair of bald eagles that seemed to follow the film crew while they worked on the project in The Maritimes.

"Eagles always have a powerful significance in the Mi'kmaq culture," said Richard. "And the fact there were two bald eagles with us all day was a powerful sign. I don't want make too much of it, but there have been moments when I have felt the presence of my ancestors. I don't want to make too much of it, but it's kind of spooky in a way."

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'Attakapas,' a dynamic, immersive multimedia concert performance incorporates visual projection and live music to tell the story of the Cajun people of Louisiana. For the October performance, 'Attakapas' has been tweaked here and there.

"We made some technical improvements," Richard said. "We're going to use a video wall instead of a rear projector so that should make the visual aspect more luminous. The most important thing, though, is that I'm going to be using live musicians, completely. Last time, we had a playback for the rhythm section.

"We've spent a lot of time improving the presentation and are getting things to run more smoothly," he said. "There's a visual aspect, there's a sound aspect and there's a narrative aspect and they all have to be synchronized absolutely for it to work. So it's been quite a challenge."

A challenge, of course; but not without benefits.

Zachary Richard performs during a memorial event for the victims of the Grand Theatre shooting at the Blackham Coliseum in July.

"It's a project that's got a lot of legs," said Richard. "Especially in light of this project I've been doing."

That project is a documentary to be aired on Canadian TV next spring "which examines the persistence of Acadian identity in the face of basically 200 years of assimilation, even in the case in New Brunswick, antagonism," Richard said. "But you have people around the world who still consider themselves to be Acadian or Cajun.

"I think this show is a tribute to that spirit of resistance. I was just really profoundly touched by what I've just experienced in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick," he continued. "I understood the basic outlines of the story, but I actually went to the home site of (Joseph Broussard dit) Beausoleil, which was basically at the crook of the river and their next neighbor was a Mi'kmaq Indian village. So this is like the farthest outpost of colonial Acadie.

When the deportation began, the British were terrified of Beausoleil, said Richard, adding that "it took them four years to get enough military resources and enough courage to go up the bend in the river and attack his settlement," he said.

"I knew the story, but I hadn't actually been there," Richard said. "And being there and seeing where all the action took place - this was not a military outpost - these were families: the Broussards, the Sonniers, the Thibodeauxs."

The Acadians would travel with the Mi'kmaq and utilizing stealth tactics, they would strike and be gone before the British knew what hit them.

"They'd wreak havoc and disappear into the forest," said Richard. "To actually be on the site and see the territory itself was quite moving; was quite moving for me."

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While in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Richard visited the "ancient home sites of my ancestors and also many of the sites of the trauma of the deportation," including Georges Island in the Harbor of Halifax "where as many as 18,000 Acadiens were held in a pen on one acre for a period of three years without shelter.

"Basically, the Acadians who were actually the people who arrived in Louisiana were the most fearsome and the most unadulterated resistance of the Acadian deportations," said Richard.

The program is presented by Festivals Acadiens et Creoles.

Dominick Cross is the culture, history and religion writer for the Times of Acadiana and the Daily Advertiser. Contact him at dcross@theadvertiser.com.

What: Zachary Richard's Attakapas: The Story of the Cajun People

When: Wednesday, Oct. 7, 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, Oct. 8, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Acadiana Center for the Art's James Devin Moncus Theater

How much: Regular: $37 / $33 / $28 Members: $35 / $31 / $26

Note: 'Attakapas' is not included in the 2015-2016 Louisiana Crossroads season