In Sesangs Act II solo Ang Masayang Dalaga (The Coquette),Footnote29 for instance, she plays the seductress who confidently lures her admirer to an intimate dance. A recording of the song, set in the lilting danza rhythm, begins with a subdued rendition by de la Rama of the opening verse as Sesang sadly reminisces about her cabaret days. Original text: Ay naku! 27 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 11011. The song ends with the maiden returning home in tears, explaining to her parents that an aswanga shapeshifting monster in Philippine mythologyscared her and took her jar, leaving her with nothing but her muddied clothes. At the age of 15, she starred in . In effect, the magazine made an already familiar face available to a strata of women devoted to Filipina nationalism, encouraging women to take charge of their lives at home and outside of it, and, by extension, in the homeland and abroad. Placing the performer and her creative labor front and center, I aim to contribute to the larger conversation surrounding the female voice as authorial and the performance as text. She was especially popular in Hawaii, home to a large population of Filipinos who had been recruited to work in the sugar cane plantations as early as 1906. Her parents came from Negros Occidental. De la Ramas performances transformed the kundiman into a particularly potent musical and cultural symbol of Filipino identity. (n.d.). By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un . Other photos of de la Rama from the 1930s onward show her holding the banga and wearing later versions of the balintawak that has a more straight-lined silhouette with matching fabric for the top and bottom parts of the dress. Atang became the very first actress in the very first Tagalog film when she essayed the same role in the sarsuela's film version. Tamang sagot sa tanong: MUSIC please help me() - studystoph.com By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina.At the age of 15, she starred in the . Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. But de la Ramas success in Dalagang Bukid ushered in a renewal of the lyrical stage with works by other emerging playwrights such as Precioso Palmas Paglipas ng Dilim (After the Darkness, 1920), Julian Cruz Balmacedas Sa Bunganga ng Pating (In the Sharks Jaws, 1921), and Servando de los Angeless Alamat ng Nayon (Legend of the Town, 1925). This CD is found in several audio collections in the United States including those in the Mills Music Library at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Library of Congress Recorded Sound Research Center. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. Original text: Tumutulong si Atang de la Rama upang ang mga may pangit na asal na nanonood sa mga dulaan ay matutong gumalang sa arte. She also made an effort to bring the kundiman and sarsuela to the indigenous peoples of the Philippine such as the Igorots, the Aetas, and the Mangyans. To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below. 23 Nicanor Tiongson, Atang de la Rama: Unat Huling Bituin, Liwayway (March 10, 1980). By the 1920s and throughout the 1930s, the influx of American popular music (often collectively referred to by contemporary artists and critics as jazz) resulted in foxtrots, blues, Charleston (spelled tsarleston in the scripts), and, later on, the Hawaii an hula being incorporated into the sarsuwela repertoire. Photographs of de la Rama aided her popularity locally and abroad and served as additional sites for her performance of Filipina femininity. 70 Her postwar film credits include Batong Buhay (1950), Salome (1952), Siga, Siga (1953), Rigiding (1954), Ang Buhay at Pag-ibig ni Dr. Jose Rizal (1955). Figure 4. Born January 11, 1905 Died July 11, 1991 (86) Add or change photo on IMDbPro Add to list Known for Dalagang bukid 7.2 Wherever I go, in the course of my professional tours and engagements, I always wear my saya long and the sleeves of my camisa as ample as they should be like the gauzy wings of a butterfly, and it has never failed to elicit sighs of admiration among women of other countries I have visited. 3099067 She navigated the theatrical stages of sarsuwela and bodabil fluidly, occasionally writing and producing shows herself. [2], Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. As scholars of gender and womens history in the Philippines have argued, the early twentieth century is crucial in understanding how women were at the forefront of colonial encounters that ultimately shaped Philippine modernity and Filipinos struggles against and within the United States empire.Footnote9 Historian Genevieve Clutario, in particular, draws attention to how women used fashion and beauty regimens that did not neatly align with those imposed by the American colonial regime or those of Filipino nationalists who opposed womens suffrage and saw it as another form of American intervention.Footnote10 As a professional artist, de la Rama became a recognizable figure of the womens movement, serving as a model for the Filipina at work outside of the home. De la Ramas performances were at once sources of musical authorship and powerful testaments to womens creative work that has long been overlooked in the historiography of Philippine music and culture. Atang Dela Rama is a national artist for theater and music queen of kundiman. 2. Throughout the late 1920s and 1930s, de la Rama continued to cross over from one performing media to another, breaking expectations of traditional Filipina femininity while asserting her own creative authority. The intricate folding of the panuelo is in itself an art, and it has been a constant source of wonder among foreigners. This treaty ceded the Philippines (along with Puerto Rico and Guam) to the United States in the aftermath of the Spanish-American war. Moreover, de la Ramas celebrity status did not rely solely on her vocal ability, but also on the visual aspects of her performances on- and offstage. Filipino zarzuelistas continued to perform Spanish repertoire at the same time that sarsuwelas in Tagalog and other local Philippine languages were on the rise at the turn of the twentieth century. By 1925, de la Cruz was the highest paid . De la Cruz also appeared in films and received a FAMAS Best Supporting Actress Award in 1953. Honorata de la Rama-Hernandez (January 11, 1902 July 11, 1991), commonly known as Atang de la Rama, was a singer and bodabil performer who became the first Filipina film actress. Copies of her scripts are found in the Manuscripts Folder, Atang de la Rama Collection, National Library of the Philippines (http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/home.htm). Also, Renato Lucas, A Preliminary Annotation of Selected Discography by Filipino Artists, 19131946, Journal of the Arts, Culture, and the Humanities 3, no. 21 Tiongson, Atang de la Rama, 59; Fernandez, Zarzuela to Sarswela, 331. Career By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. It is this sense of authorship that Hilary Poriss similarly argues for the critical work of prima donnas of the nineteenth century in their practice of altering operatic scores in performance, thereby challenging conceptions of authenticity of a given musical work.Footnote8 While Abbate and Poriss comment largely on the history and performance of European opera, such theorizations of the voice and of the performing artist are particularly helpful in teasing out the ways in which de la Ramas voice and stage presence position her as co-creator of sarsuwelas. Her direct address to potential audiences reflected a bold and confident voice that knew how and when to play the crowd. Confident in her languid disregard for the composers melody, she renders a playful, flirtatious version of the song. Scholars have rightly commented on how the sarsuwelas preserved the largely patriarchal social order of early twentieth-century Manila, even as the theatrical stage critiqued colonial powers.Footnote6 Yet to understand the sarsuwela as a purely representational form at the expense of its musical and performative aspects is to neglect the larger stakes of its world-making and the multiple possibilities of meaning it conveys. In Deocampos words, this decision would ensure patronage for this novelty entertainment that, in the early years of moving pictures, could hardly compete with the immense popularity of theatrical shows.Footnote50 Indeed, it was not only the presence of de la Rama on film that generated new audiences for the medium. Contemporary accounts portray de la Rama as a commanding authority on the theatrical stage. Perhaps it is only theater royalty who could get away with schooling their public. In 1979, she was hailed as Queen of Kundiman, and in 1987, she was awarded as National Artist for Theater and Music. Honorata de la Rama Hernandez, popularly known as Atang de la Rama, a singer and performer is the first star of the Philippine Cinema. The iconic image of de la Rama as dalagang bukid also likely inspired the well-known dalagang Filipina subject found in painter Fernando Amorsolos romantic-realist scenes of the idyllic countryside from the 1920s (see Figure 2), with its bandanna-clad young woman who bears some likeness to de la Ramas 1919 portrait. At the height of her career, she sang kundimans and other Filipino songs in concerts in such cities as Hawaii, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? He was everything that didnt make money. The Philippine-American war officially ended in 1902, while pockets of armed resistance continued in various provinces and locales outside of Manila at least until 1913. 17 The recording I used for this analysis is a compact disc compilation entitled Kamuning: Re-mastered (Quezon City: Yesteryears Music Gallery, 2000). Angelita and Cipriano are the main protagonists in the sarsuwela. 15 Susan Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela: Performing Race and Gender on Havanas Lyric Stage (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 7. 28 In Sesangs first entrance at the opening party scene, for example, the libretto instructs the actor to appear in a dress dcolletage (nakabestidong escotado). A 1930 appearance in the sarsuwela Maria Luisa offers another example of de la Ramas authorial role as a performing artist.Footnote30 In this work, she played the role of Anita, the daughter of the wealthy Don Justo. and National Commission for Culture and the Arts. In 1901, for example, a show advertised as a Novelty in Manila was held at the Teatro Zorrilla that included a variety of acts, ragtime numbers, acrobatics, and minstrelsy performances accompanied by a Good American Orchestra. See Doreen Fernandez, Apolonio B. Chua, and Galileo S. Zafra, Bodabil, in Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, 2nd ed., Nicanor Tiongson (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2018). 2 The original text is in Spanish. 37 See Francisco Santiago, The Development of Music in the Philippine Islands (Manila: The Institute of Pacific Relations, 1931), 16. Atang believed that art should be for everyone; not only did she perform in major Manila theaters such as the Teatro Libertad and the Teatro Zorilla, but also in cockpits and open plazas in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. Atang Dela Rama was born on 11 January 1905 in Manila, Philippines. Courtesy of the National Library of the Philippines, As Roces further points out, moreover, a complex politics of dress was carried out by the local suffragists, who purposefully used the traje de mestiza or terno in their civic-oriented work to counter those who perceived the movement as yet another form of colonial expansion. In the April 26, 1930 issue of the Tagalog daily Taliba, for example, Franco Vera Reyes wrote, I hope the many artists who starred in Maria Luisa will not be offended by this but they owe a huge part of the zarzuelas success to the muse of the Tagalog drama [Mutya ng Dulaang Tagalog]. Lahat na lang ng di mapagkakakitaan, nasa kanya na. She was named a national artist of the Philippines in 1987, at the age of 85. 10 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 2. De la Ramas long career richly illustrates the power of the female voice in shattering gendered and prescriptive notions of Filipino nationalism that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s amidst anxieties over the Americanization of Filipino culture. Because of her ubiquitous visibility in the artistic and civic life in the Philippines, her name has outlived those of most other artists of the sarsuwela stage, and her career withstood the changes and technological advances in mass media that occurred throughout her long life. Rama fought for the dominance of the such as: kundiman, an important Philippine folk song, Theater (1968) and the sarsuela, which is a musical play that Doon sa Dakong Timog. De la Rama dancing to the foxtrot points to the popularity of the dance genre in the Philippines around the same time as the sarsuwelas premiere. Recent musicological scholarship on women and performance in Southeast Asia carefully examines the conditions of colonialism in the region that compelled female performers to embrace creative ways to combine foreign musical elements with their vernacular. 72 A typescript account found at the Atang de la Rama Collection listing her appearance in sarsuwela performances puts Dalagang Bukid at the top with a total of 724 performances. It is good that I am broad-minded and I knew that he helped the poor and the workers. However, Angelita is forced by her parents to marry a wealthy loan shark, Don Silvestre, as they need money to pay for their gambling habit and other vices. We use cookies to improve your website experience. The manuscript piano-vocal score and libretto of Dalagang Bukid is located in the Manlapaz Collection of the Pardo de Tavera Library and Special Collections at the Ateneo de Manila University (PL5548.3.I54 D3). Makalawa na niyang ginawa ito at umaasa siyang magpatuloy habang ang mga nanonood sa dulaan ay hindi natututong magpakatino.. Although it is difficult to ascertain how widely de la Ramas image from the 1919 playbill circulated, it is highly probable that her onstage character contributed to the popularity of the country theme in many studio photographs. Original text is in English. In the latter part of this essay, I pair my analyses of de la Ramas musical voice with her strong visual presence in commercial photography and print media during the 1920s and 1930s. On May 8, 1987, "for her sincere devotion to original Filipino theater and music, her outstanding artistry as singer, and as sarsuela actress-playwright-producer, her tireless efforts to bring her art to all sectors of Filipino society and to the world," President Corazon C. Aquino proclaimed Atang de la Rama a National Artist of the Philippines for Theater and Music.[5]. Kung umaawit siya sa tanghalan ay laging minamataan niya ang mga gumagambala sa kanyang pag-awit, at sa sandaling makatapos ay nananaog siya sa ibaba at binabayaran ng mariing sampal sa mukha ang sinumang bumastos sa kanya. By the age of 7 she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota Sueo de un Vals and Marina. 12 (2004): 75106, at 9798. I refuse to believe it, because you were, you are, and will always be my good protector and affectionate friend Ill wait for you, then. For more on the history of the U.S. empire the Philippines, see Paul Kramer, Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Of all the many roles she played and stages on which she appeared, her performance in Dalagang Bukid remains her greatest and most memorable success.Footnote72 But a more comprehensive account of her creative and artistic breadth reveals an artist with a keen understanding of performance both on and off the stage. Wilfredo Ma. Sarsuwela characters ran the gamut of stereotypes, from the virtuous and chaste Filipina, the perpetual dalagang bukid, to the manipulative flirt depicted as a product of rapid urban modernization. In the 1930s, de la Rama was on the roster of artists in the KZIB radio station founded by the American department store owner Isaac Beck. The other women awardees largely belonged to performing arts categories. De la Ramas celebrity status also carried through the visual aspects of her public persona on and off stage, cultivating an image that was both modern and traditional, Filipino and cosmopolitan. In this article, I trace de la Ramas creative authorship through analyses of her performances onstage and offstage, where the aural and visual aspects of her role as Filipina diva come together. Original text is in English. 3 Written histories of Spanish zarzuela in the Philippines often start with an account of the staging of Francisco Barbieris Jugar con Fuego, sometime between 1878 and 1879 by Dario Cspedes, who managed a zarzuela company in Spain prior to his arrival in Manila. In the first line of the chorus, she prolongs the opening word halina (come hither), adding a subtle allure as she sings of a heart-stopping kiss and instructs her partner not to be timid in touching her. She did this twice already and she hopes to continue doing so until all who comes to watch her learns to behave properly.Footnote54. Register a free Taylor & Francis Online account today to boost your research and gain these benefits: Creative Authorship and the Filipina Diva Atang de la Rama. During the American. 22 The article was derived from a booklet published by Columbia Gramophone Company with a letter written by Sawyer, dated November 23, 1914. 20 Remigio Mat Castro, Nabasag ang Banga? See Gino Gonzales et. Background Atang de la Rama was born in Tondo, Manila on January 11, 1905. group 4 theater it is the direction, performance and/or production design the roster ofnational artists (theater) honorata 'atang' dela rama. Ricardo Trimilloss essay in the collection, Enacting Modernity through Voice, Body, and Gender: Filipina Singers from the Close of the Philippine-American War to the Onset of Martial Law (1913-1972), 26180, in particular, traces how popular Filipina singers were instrumental in the creation of a Philippine modernity from 1913 to 1972. As she embarked on her Hawaii tour, she was featured on the front page of the July 1926 issue of The Womans Outlook, a magazine that was dedicated to promoting womens progress during the 1920s (see Figure 4). This essay focuses on the career of Honorata Atang de la Rama on the popular sarsuwela and vaudeville stages during the period of American colonization in the Philippines. At the end of this rendition, one is left with the distinct impression that she is mischievously waiting to tip over and break the jar herself.Footnote18. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. Honorata "Atang" Dela Rama was formally honored as the Queen of Kundiman in 1979, then already 74 years old singing the same song ("Nabasag na Banga") that she sang as a 15-year old girl in the sarsuela "Dalagang Bukid". al., Fashionable Filipinas, 141. The Order of National Artists (Orden ng Pambansang Alagad ng Sining) is the highest national recognition given to Filipino individuals who have made significant contributions to the development of Philippine arts; namely, Music, Dance, Theater . 65 Roces, Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct, 37. The local vaudeville or bodabil stageas it was referred to in Tagalogprovided such a space for blurring the boundaries between traditional and modern, old and new. This essay examines the role of Atang de la Rama in the development of the Tagalog sarsuwela and in the emerging popular entertainment industry in the Philippines in order to make a claim about women in performance as primary creators of Filipino culture and identity. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. A sense of this interpretation can be gleaned from her recording of this pivotal song released years following the sarsuwelas premiere.Footnote17 Listening to the recording of Nabasag ang Banga, the power of de la Ramas voice is defined less by its intensity and more by the preciseness of her pitch and clarity of her tone. Honorata de la Rama-Hernandez commonly known as Atang de la Rama was a singer and bodabil performer who became the first Filipina film actress. See also Angel Velasco and Luis Francia, Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999 (New York: New York University Press, 2002). Continue your trip to show other nations and whites our capacity for all kinds of pursuits and that we also have artists that we can be proud of!Footnote46 Such adulation underlines de la Ramas inextricable connection to the song form and her role in crafting kundimans canonic place in Philippine music. Sawyer also campaigned for womens suffrage during this period and, as dance and theater historian Julie Malnig argues, linked the rhetoric of physical and psychological progress to dance and to womens new-found freedoms. See Julie Malnig, Two-Stepping to Glory: Social Dance and the Rhetoric of Social Mobility, Etnofoor 10, no. 53 Lalake!!! The Queen of the Kundiman, at once a striking presence on the popular stages of Manila and beyond, demands that her performance be taken seriously. Newspaper reviews between 1922 and 1925 remark on her performance of Tagalog song repertory, especially of kundiman songs, which contributed to her earning the moniker Queen of the Kundiman.Footnote39 While the kundiman has a long history that dates back to the early nineteenth century, it was during the 1920s that the genre became widely associated with its characteristic patriotic sentimentality and themes of national longing.Footnote40 Images of the ideal woman and the virtuous Filipina, often standing in as a symbol for the longed-for independent motherland, recur in many kundimans. Such critiques and social commentary also projected gendered prescriptions of the ideal Filipina as demure and virtuous, the dalagang Filipina, a recurring trope in Philippine literature and culture that persists to this day. Anvil Publishing.2004. At the age of 14, Atang played as lead role in a sarsuela entitled "Dalagang Bukid" which was a hit during 1919. The dalagang Filipina figured prominently in Amorsolos works throughout his career and had become, as historian Mina Roces argues, the romanticized image of the Filipino woman that most Filipino men in the 1920s wanted to maintain, especially at the time when the womens suffrage movement was gaining traction in the Philippines.Footnote58 Photographs from the 1920s and 1930s display de la Ramas penchant for combining traditional and modern fashion trends, actively contradicting the nostalgic and romanticized image of the Filipina. Pag may welga, magpapakuha yan ng saku-sakong bigas at lata ng biskuwit kayat palaging laslas ang bulsa ni Atang de la Rama. Emphasis in the original article. performing alongside other leading stage performers such as Atang de la Rama. Rejecting the idea that their campaign grew out of an American cultural construction of the feminine, Filipina suffragists took to what they called panuelo activism in their use of the terno and reasserted the idea that the womens suffrage was, indeed, a Filipino project.Footnote62. Early life . Beyond the sarsuwela stage, de la Ramas work in vaudeville, film, and radio complicate perceptions of a Filipino culture wholly subject to the cultural logics of American colonialism. Her real . Guerrero. Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. Trivia (7) As Queen of Zarzuela, she starred in more than 50 zarzuelas. 25 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 25657. As of this writing, there are 7 National Artist for Theater awardees. Missing from this historiography of the kundiman, however, is de la Ramas active role in performing and building up the kundiman repertory as much as its composers had done. The bilingual (English and Spanish) magazine, edited by Filipino suffragist Trining Fernandez-Legarda, promoted itself as devoted to the best traditions of the Filipino home and the progress of the women in the Philippines. Although the magazine published many articles dedicated to family life and domesticity, it also included features and commentary that encouraged women to go out of the home in order to become better wives and mothers; moreover, its editorial board explicitly advocated for womens suffrage during the 1920s and 1930s.Footnote65 The (uncaptioned) cover photo links de la Rama with her iconic role by juxtaposing her headshot with a full profile of her as the dalagang bukid. Her cover photo is framed by texts that point to the magazines multiple strategies for advancing womens progress within the confines of homemaking as well as in seeking full participation in civic life. Clutario notes how the Tagalog word kiri had become synonymous with the flapper, one of the dominant symbols of Filipina modernity in the late 1920s.Footnote27 This particular strain of Filipina modernity corresponds to the ways in which new fashion and beauty regimens became strongly tied to perceptions and subsequent depictions of the babae ngayon (woman of today), sexually liberated in stark contrast to the ideal Filipina.