Goze

Book excerpt: In a tradition extending from the medieval era up through the middle of the 19th century, visually disabled Japanese women known as Goze would tour the Japanese countryside as professional singers, contributing to the vitality of rural musical culture. Gerald Groemer shows that the solidarity these singers achieved through narrative and music was based on the convergence of their desire to achieve social autonomy and the wish of lower-class to mitigate the cultural deprivation to which they were subject.