Natural - Prosthetic - Folkloric. Discursive positions of national folklore towards disability in contemporary Slovak culture

Abstract

To express nationality through folklore performances in Slovakia, one must become completely deindividualized in order to embody the archetype of a folkloric body. This body should move and sound just like the body next to it, amplifying figurative eroticism and mechanical, oppressive sameness of the natural "cycle of life".

Consequently, disability creates a blank spot in this discourse because it is not repetitive, but individual and uncategorized: "a stroke of fate", a reminder of the unnational, medical realities of bodies. This paper will examine the process of "folklore-ing disability", by which I mean discursive suturing of disabled people into folklore imageries and national fantasies through body ornamentation and familiar soundscapes.

This process will be observed in Slovak folklore groups consisting exclusively of disabled performers and in representations of disabled individuals in the folklore TV talent show "The Earth is Singing" (2017-2018). The aim of this paper is to understand how nationality and disability as two opposite cultural identities (the former dominant and ubiquitous, the latter rare and marginalized) can coexist in the act of folklore performance.

In addition, I will try to answer a more challenging question: Do these identities only coexist, or could their collision produce another identity that is rather visionary than traditional?