Benefit concert honouring Joyce Echaquan available to stream Thursday
Two months after Joyce Echaquan's death in a Joliette hospital, a group of Indigenous and non-indigenous artists has gathered to celebrate the life of the 37-year-old Atikamekw mother of seven and pay tribute to her with a benefit concert intended to advance the work of reconciliation in Quebec.
In her final moments, Echaquan recorded slurs and degrading comments about her by hospital staff.
The show, Waskapitan, from the Atikamekw term for “let's come closer together,” was recorded in Joliette last week; it will be streamed free of charge as of this Thursday with featured artists including Elisapie, Ariane Moffatt, Florent Vollant, Patrick Watson and Natasha Kanapé Fontaine.
Most people associate the name Joyce Echaquan with the Facebook video of her final moments, but her cousin Jemmy Echaquan said she wished they could remember her for who she was.
“I wish people could have known Joyce the way she was,” she said. “She was always smiling, she helped others, she adored her children.”
Jennifer Brazeau, director of the Lanaudière Native Friendship Centre and someone who knew Joyce Echaquan, said one goal of the show is to get beyond the tragedy to “shine a light on the beauty of our culture.”
“For me, it is really important to show the young that there is hope, to use the event to inspire us, to have the courage to act,” she said.
“We shouldn't look only at the tragic side of what happened. This was a woman, a mother, a sister, a cousin. She had a life, which went far beyond what we saw on Facebook.”
Elisapie, co-artistic director of the show, said that she wanted to offer “something beautiful” to people who see the show and that, regardless of their origin, “it's what we need these days.
“We need sweetness, beauty and joy. I think that people like Shauit (a Canadian singer-songwriter who blends traditional First Nations music with pop-rock and reggae) and (folk music pioneer) Yves Lambert, are joyful.”
The show will include numbers reflecting “a real musical sharing of cultures,” she said.
“We have to learn to be closer, to be curious, to be there for each other,” Elisapie said.
According to Jemmy Echaquan and Brazeau, the drama of Joyce Echaquan's final moments will at least help to raise awareness in the population of the situation of Indigenous communities.
“There was a shock and a realization. And that gives me hope,” Brazeau said.
“My great concern is that this be an event that passes and falls off the radar. For me, it is so important that yet another tragedy not take place before we continue to work on these challenges.”
Elisapie, who spoke out on social media to Premier François Legault following the death of Joyce Echaquan, decried the fact the government continues to deny the presence of systemic racism in the province.
“It's very clear that systems are such that Indigenous Peoples were looked down upon for too long and that they also experienced violence. So, yes, we're here,” she said.
The concert is scheduled to be available online from Thursday until Jan. 3, 2021, at the website waskapitan.org.
Donations will go toward improving conditions for Indigenous communities in urban areas; this includes opening a clinic for Indigenous communities in Joliette.
“It's money that will be used for concrete things,” Elisapie said.