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A Moving Sound is an award-winning Taiwanese ensemble performing music and dance steeped in traditional and global influences, and utilizing traditional Taiwanese instrumentation.
A partnership between Arts Midwest and the Minot Area Council of the Arts (MACA) is bringing the award-winning ensemble, A Moving Sound, to Minot this week as part of Arts Midwest World Fest.
The Taiwanese group performs music and dance steeped in both traditional and global influences.
During a weeklong residency in Minot, from Tuesday through Saturday, A Moving Sound will offer free workshops in local schools and other community locations and will also perform a free public concert.
On Tuesday from 5:30-7:30 p.m., the group will be hosting a public poolside meet and greet event at Hotel Revel. The first 15 people to come will receive free swim passes. Light snacks and refreshments will also be available.
On Wednesday from 6:30-8:30 p.m., members of the ensemble will be running a free dance and movement workshop at Ascend FIT Studio. Prior sign-up is required.
On Saturday from 4-6 p.m. at Central Middle School, 215 1st St. SE, A Moving Sound will be performing a free, all ages concert.
Additionally, throughout the week the ensemble will be visiting several area schools to do performances and workshops at Minot High School Magic City Campus, Minot North High School, South Prairie, Nedrose, Glenburn and Minot State University.
The music of A Moving Sound uses region specific instrumentation such as the erhu, or Taiwanese fiddle, and the ruan, a Taiwanese lute, along with other unique instrumentation that is further enriched by the vocals of lead singer and group co-founder Mia Hsieh.
“I think it’s a great way for a semi-rural location to see culture and arts from other countries and around the world,” said Myles Barcomb, co-executive director along with Tonia Vitko of MACA. “The world gets brought to Minot.”
Barcomb and Vitko will be the MACA liaisons for A Moving Sound during its weeklong residency in Minot.
“We provide their hotel accommodations and we provide their schedule for scheduling them around town and transportation,” Barcomb said.
The Taiwan based ensemble will be educating as well as performing, providing lectures and education on Taiwanese culture along with their music and dance.
Not only will Minot area residents be exposed to Taiwanese music and culture, but the ensemble will be exposed to North Dakota and midwestern American culture as well.
“It’s a cultural exchange, so the group stays here for a week, and they get to know what it’s like here in the Midwest also,” Barcomb said. “That’s part of what they want to do, is explore the towns and the locations where they’re at and have it be a cultural exchange.”
The goal of Arts Midwest World Fest is to embody this cultural exchange on both sides, by exposing midwestern communities to different cultures and other ways of life around the world.
“It’s been a broad range of cultures that have come,” Barcomb said about past World Fest acts in Minot. Some of these acts included ensembles from Finland, Ghana, indigenous Alaska and more. This past spring 2024 a latin pop group from across South America performed in April.
According to Arts Midwest, World Fest is a performing arts residency program that tours world music ensembles to communities in the midwest. Each World Fest season is a three year commitment in which Arts Midwest partners with a rural or semi-rural community in the midwest to host the residency programs with the World Fest artists.
“They pick one city in each state on their tour, and Minot was chosen for North Dakota,” Barcomb said. “It was a three-year commitment.”
This upcoming spring 2025 will be the last World Fest act to do their residency in Minot through the Arts Midwest program and will be featuring vocalist Farah Siraj of Jordan.
“Arts Midwest is a midwest-based arts organization that promotes the arts, similar to what MACA does, but on a larger scale,” Barcomb said.
The other states Arts Midwest serves are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin and indigenous communities across the midwest.
A Moving Sound’s visit to Minot is made possible by a partnership between Arts Midwest, the National Endowment for the Arts, North Dakota Council on the Arts and Minot Area Council of the Arts.
According to a news release, A Moving Sound has been featured on BBC Radio 3, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and The Discovery Channel. They have performed and taught in twenty-three countries including The Kennedy Center, The Chicago World Music Festival, W.O.M.A.D. (picked as a festival highlight by London Financial Times) and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. A Moving Sound’s music is distributed internationally through the UK record label ARC music.
