To celebrate Dragon Boat Day and the release, albeit belatedly, of its enchanting debut longplayer, Pacu's Trip, cross-cultural music/performance art combo, Moving Sound will bring its eclectic blend of ethnic harmonies and atmospheric ambiance to Taipei's Red House Theatre on Tuesday for a special one-off performance.
Entitled A Celebration of Ancient Spirit in a Modern World and dubbed "music for an urban tribe," the show has been created by the group to, in its own words, "Connect old and new, and East and West, to create a new ritual" for the age-old Oriental holiday. The concert will allow audiences to both hear and see Moving Sound at its best.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MOVING SOUND
The combo plans to entice audiences with an audio feast filled with everything from gypsy music to Middle Eastern tunes, African, Aboriginal, Adriatic and Oriental songs, while at the same time arousing viewers with the show's visual and theatrical aspects, that blend elements of the ancient and the modern.
Formed in 2001 in New York by US national Scott Prairie and Taiwan's Mia Hsieh (謝韻雅), and later joined by Taiwan national Alex Wu (吳政君), the art house styled performance group has long been a regular crowd-pleaser in Taipei and has been lauded for its rich audiovisual performances at alternative venues such as the Witch House.
Along with wowing fans in Taiwan the group has also wooed crowds in the US, where it recently played a five-city tour and saw its pleasing world beat tinged vibes prove hugely successful. Moving Sound performed to packed-houses at a string of well-known venues on both the East and West Coasts including LA's The Knitting Factory and New York's Galapagos Art Space.
For its up-coming show at Taipei's Red House Theatre, the group will perform a mixed bag of tunes from the recent album and will be joined on stage by several guest musicians. Teaming up with Moving Sound will be a local classical Chinese musician, two Indian classical musicians and Belgian Pieter Thys, who appeared on the group's recent album.
Performance notes:
What: A Moving Sound: A Celebration of Ancient Spirit in a Modern World.
Where: The Red House Theatre, 10 Chengde Rd, Taipei (台北市成都路10號).
When: 7:30pm, Tuesday, June 22
Tickets: Tickets cost NT$450 and are available at the door.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and