Barachois Foot-Stomping Beats Bring Audience to Its Feet

Author: Dan Phillips

On Wed., March 18 the musical performers Barachois came all the way from Canada's smallest province of Prince Edward Island to entertain a packed McCullough.
The event, organized by the French Department and open to the public, provided Middlebury College students with much relief from mid-term exam anxiety.
The quartet represents the musical heritage of the Acadians, descendants of 17th-century French settlers. Each Barachois member descends from the same Acadians who left Nova Scotia hundreds of years ago.
Although Barachois does not play in the same style or with traditional instruments, each song pays tribute to their culture, and they have crafted several of their own instruments to achieve their truly authentic sound.
Barachois first formed in the mid 1990s, and their sound is a synthesis of up to four-part vocal harmonies with dual fiddles playing on top of a piano foundation with the occasional blend of assorted percussion and brass instruments.
Albert Arsenault plays the fiddle and bass with occasional percussion, while his sister HÈlËne Arsenault-Bergeron was on the piano and pump organ. Chuck Arsenault is the guitar player, even adding a trumpet and sousaphone into the mix.
Louise Arsenault, who plays the fiddle, learned how to play and dance while seated from her father. All members grew up with music in their families, yet only HÈlËne and Albert are immediately related, despite the shared last name among group members.
Barachois lights up the stage by incorporating step dancing into every song - tap dancing with driving foot rhythms while seated and playing an instrument, or even when there is no instrument to be played.
As they constantly switch places and microphones, change instruments and play jokes on one another while on stage, the careful, intricate choreography only enhances Barachois' performance.
As a prelude to each song, the group included some Acadian history and lore behind each tune, speaking alternately English and French.
Its music follows lasting Acadian traditions since much of the music is about marriage and relationships.
The Canadian government provides them with financial assistance for touring. They have won an award for preserving their heritage. Barachois does a lot of shows for English-speaking children in Canada to educate them about their culture.
As Acadians, they are not supposed to speak English, so they need to incorporate a strong visual element into their performance.
The high-energy show was, as a result, filled with endless on-stage antics, jokes and storytelling, as the dancing and foot-stomping beats had audience members laughing out loud and clapping their hands along to every song.
The cleverly creative group of four played a repertoire of 15 songs, ranging from traditional Acadian tunes to Cajun music and a medley of the Rolling Stones' "Can't Get No Satisfaction," Glen Campbell's "Like a Rhinestone Cowboy" and The Beegees' "Stayin' Alive," complete with costumes and impersonation dances by Chuck.
At different points in the show, Albert played a cardboard box and frying pans, unlaced and retied Louise's tap shoes while she continued to dance and play, performed a kazoo solo and played a lumberjack's saw with a violin bow after sawing a block of wood as percussion.
He even used drums on helmets atop four randomly-selected audience members' heads as a demonstration to create their own on-stage co-op to split the donations given by the audience earlier in the show.
The group explained that nearly 350 Acadian families exist with over 20 different co-ops, or joint organizations that split profits, making their culture the largest per capita co-op capital in the world.
By its last song, Barachois compelled one audience member to perform his tap dancing skills in front of the stage, where he was promptly incorporated into the act in its final hoorah that impressed the crowd to an exuberant standing ovation.