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Paper short abstract

Attitudes of Kyrgyz epic singers to audio recording technology and its impact on their performances and the afterlives of their voices has historically varied. Their negative or positive interpretations of this technology provide insights into the possibilities for the reception of such recordings.

Paper long abstract

A performance studies approach to oral and oral-derived narrative emphasizes a recognition of the impacts of the setting, such as the presence of an audio-recording device, on the text of the performance. Such performance settings are often labeled as “natural,” “induced natural,” or “unnatural/artificial” depending on the specific circumstances. While folklorists can analyze these performance events as outsiders, another invaluable analytical source in understanding the nature of a performance setting can be found in the “vernacular theory” of the performers themselves. Performances of Kyrgyz oral epics, first textualized in the 1850s, have been captured by audio-recording devices since the beginning of the twentieth century. The first audio recording was collected in 1904 on wax cylinders from the bard Kenje Kara (1859-1929). Beginning in the 1930s, the performances of Saiakbai Karalaev (1894-1971) were broadcast via radio, and later, television broadcasts, in the Soviet Union. In recent years, the bards Talaantaaly Bakchiev (b. 1971) and Doolot Sydykov (b. 1983) have worked as scholars alongside academics in modern recording studios to produce texts for computer analysis. This paper investigates the varying attitudes of Kyrgyz epic singers to audio recording technology and the ways in which it gives an afterlife to their own voices. Their interpretations of this technology as either an agent of demonic depersonalization, a source for international appreciation, and a means to deeper scholarly insight, respectively, provide insight into the possibilities for the reception of such recordings.