Reframing the Gaze: Maria Theresia Paradis, Blind Musicians, and Musical Culture before and after Braille

Traveling busker performance is an integral part of the folk musical culture of Western Polissya and has been widespread in the region until recently. Particularly important were the hurdy-gurdy players, which were respected as great spiritual and ethical mentors. As well they influenced the development of the folk musical tradition in general. The proposed research illuminates life and musical art career of Ivan Vlasyuk, the last Polissyan hurdy-gurdy player. Besides biographical information there are transcriptions of unknown records: two psalms about Saint Nicholas and one about John the Forerunner. In addition to discovered records the author of the article includ- ed voluminous ethnographic information to present a complete picture of the life and work of a talented musician. It was collected during 2017–2019 from local residents in the village Zalyuttya in Starovyzhivskiy district of Volyn region, as well as from the guide-boy and later son-in-law of musician – Petro Savchuk, born in 1946. Ivan Vlasiuk used several forms of busking, which combined the rituals of the Orthodox Church: a recitation of prayers, singing of Akathists, Bible theme psalms on one side. On the other side he performed songs on ethical and satirical themes or jokes and dances accompanied by a hurdy-gurdy. The main form of busking was focused on visiting village houses. The passage through the village was performed in two ways.The first was by going “from house to house”, the other in hurdy-gurdy art tradition was called “going through”, which described as an artist’s passing on the main road of the village with- out visiting villager’s homes. Besides “from house to house” form, there were shows at big public gatherings, such as fairs or markets. Equally important were the church and religious festivals where many traveling musicians gathered at the same time. The main part of Ivan Vlasyuk’s repertoire was inherited from his teacher Stepan Rybachuk, the rest he learned from other blind musicians in the process of busking. At the beginning of his travels Ivan Vlasyuk’s repertoire consisted mainly of religious ethical works, and later he actively studied folk songs-mostly humorous, which were more interesting to peasants and to the musician himself. The proposed work is only the beginning of studies of the hurdy-gurdy art in Western Polissya, so it does not claim to be entire. At least it requires the full coverage of work about other representatives of the local blind busker tradition, including the blind harmonists.

Visually disabled men and women in Edo-period Japan labored in nearly every sector of the economy, but it was in the performing arts, and music in particular, that their contributions were destined to be most significant and enduring. Indeed, the development that Japanese music has seen over the past five centuries is hardly conceivable without the efforts of men and women with severe visual disabilities. “Eight-role art” continued to please the public well into the nineteenth century. By this time, a huge number of variety halls had sprung up in Edo, Osaka, and elsewhere, and permitted blind musicians, reciters, riddle-tellers, and others to nurture their talents and careers. Goze associations were often acknowledged or supported by provincial lords who saw in the groupings an expedient means for demonstrating seigniorial benevolence and for enforcing social control. Such associations usually remained independent of direct administrative control by the todo.

The Tokugawa era generated a new episteme that in musical terms might be called incipient modernity. It started with the advent of the three-stringed lute shamisen in the sixteenth century, when Japanese ports were visited by Iberian traders and European missionaries. Two centuries of social stability and a maturing civil society fostered the development of a musical culture that is inconceivable without the shamisen and would have been impossible without the agency of professionally organized blind musicians. Although oral transmission remained central, various forms of musical notations started to foster musical literacy. Furthermore, a burgeoning print culture started to have an impact on the performing arts through publication, for popular consumption, of song texts and puppet play narratives, and even teach-yourself manuals for some instruments. Nagauta actively created music to be performed separately from kabuki in private zashiki settings. Musically much the same as dance music, the lyrical non-dramatic nature of their texts is close to jiuta.