While de la Rama is famously associated with her role as the demure dalagang bukid, I call attention to how her versatility as an actor and her dynamic voice allowed for a more nuanced performance that pushed against flat representations of the shy and modest Filipina. Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. Atang became the very first actress in the very first locally produced Filipino film when she essayed the same role in the sarsuela's film version. 3099067 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. Claiming to reproduce first-hand impressions from a letter by de la Rama, the Philippine Free Press article mentioned that she met, among others, Artemio Ricarte, a popular Filipino general during the 1896 Revolution against Spain and the Philippine-American War, who was living in exile in Japan for his role in the fight for Philippine independence. Vaudevilles early beginnings in the Philippines can be traced to a variety of theatrical entertainment by visiting American and European troupes in Manila in the late nineteenth century. 2. 26 Sesang is labeled in the libretto as a dalagang haliparot, a descriptor for a young and licentious woman. When there was a strike, he would order sacks of rice and cans of biscuits and charge them to me. Si Adan sa Paraiso, Plays and Short Stories Folder, Atang de la Rama Collection, National Library of the Philippines (http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00311420/datejpg1.htm). His 1914 work Ang Tatlong Babae (The Three Women), for example, reinforced the primary role of women as homemakers in projecting the ideal and patriotic image of the Filipina. Angelitas parents plan to marry her off to the much older and wealthy loan shark Don Silvestre. 68 Atang de la Rama: Sarsuwela Star, Philippine Panorama (August 28, 1983). For her achievements and contributions to the art form, she was hailed Queen of the Kundiman and of the Sarsuela in 1979, at the age of 74.[3]. 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.. Atang de la Rama was born in Tondo, Manila on January 11, 1905. 42 The brief biographical sketch included in the research guide to the Atang de la Rama Collection at the National Library of the Philippines mentions her premiering the iconic song in 1924 at a workers rally (http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/NL02/NLPADGD40850fd/datejpg1.htm, 5). As Jun Cruz Reyes has suggested, it is possible that Hernandez became more politically active because of de la Rama, not the other way around.Footnote69 Such a commentary points to the generative work done by women like de la Rama that often remain unacknowledged in histories of Philippine culture. In many of her publicity photos, she wears the Filipino dress typically worn by middle- and upper-class women, the traje de mestiza (see Figure 3). As scholars Peter Keppy and Frederick Schenker have noted, the real-life cabarets that proliferated in the Philippines were subject to crackdowns by local authorities as well as to criticisms by Filipino elites and nationalist rhetoric.Footnote24 Schenker, in particular, points to the ways in which bailarinas of this period were caught in the debates about Filipino racial respectability and readiness for self-rule.Footnote25, Ang Kiri fleshes out the moral and cultural contradictions of Manilas cabaret scene through the story of Sesang, a former bailarina who reenters polite society.Footnote26 As the kiri or coquette character, Sesang bears the social stigma of her occupation and struggles to seek moral redemption throughout the drama. I then turn to de la Ramas work outside of the sarsuwela to further elaborate on her authorial performance within the broader landscape of popular entertainment in the Philippines and abroad. In a tennis court scene showing the new types of social spaces that women could inhabit, Sesang appears wearing sports attire as she hangs out with her suitors. 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. As the above quote suggests, her ability to connect with her audience went beyond her characterization of the bashful country maiden, and had, in a short span of time, allowed for a playful familiarity with her growing fan base. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. 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). By closing this message, you are consenting to our use of cookies. In the final repetition of the songs chorus, de la Rama plays out affective vocal nuances with the pronounced slowness of her delivery. 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. Despite the poor quality of some of the recordings, her voice remains striking in its clarity and vibrancy, a distinctive characteristic that resounded particularly well in early Philippine radio broadcasting. Fictional representations of the Filipina as the heroine often relied on the ideal good woman archetype or on the moral redemption of the good girl-turned-bad. Images of meek and subservient women abound in early twentieth century Tagalog literature, which led literary historian and critic Soledad Reyes to comment on the recurring portrayal of the obedient, faithful and self-sacrificing wife who suffers in silence even when confronted with her husbands infidelities.Footnote12 The characterizations of women in Tagalog sarsuwelas, on the other hand, reflected differing attitudes and responses to modernization in the Philippines. This was a practice employed by composers at the turn of the twentieth century who liberally used dance forms such as the waltz, habanera, tango, mazurka, and polka. Singing competitions such as the Jazz and Kundiman Championship were also quite popular during the 1920s and were instrumental in presenting the genre as Filipino in contradistinction to jazz. In these contests, Jazz Girls were pitted against Lady Kundimans, which featured Atang de la Rama and Maggie Calloway, a silent film star in the late 1920s.Footnote43 Composers of this period took a serious interest in creating kundimans precisely because of the very voices that opened up the genre to a wider audience and gave life to their compositions. In the local vaudeville circuit, for instance, she performed novelty songs in English and popular excerpts from Italian operas, including duets with the Italian baritone Mario Padovani. Academics echoed similar critiques. See Helen F. Samson-Lauterwald, Music in the Sarsuwelas of Severino Reyes (Lola Basyang) (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2016). By the late 1920s, the traje de mestiza would evolve into the terno, a garment with a more streamlined design and prominent butterfly sleeves.Footnote60 The terno became the symbolic national dress worn by women in public and in various civic organizations. 12 Soledad S. Reyes, Representations of Filipino Women in Selected Tagalog Novels (1905-1921), in Feasts and Feats: Festschrift for Doreen G. Fernandez, eds. Si Adan sa Paraiso (Man!!! De la Ramas voice resonates through the writers own recollection as it vividly creates the experience of the sarsuwela for its audience. The woman general, Heneral Emilia, is an unmistakable reference to Emilio Aguinaldo (18691964), a general during the Philippine Revolution against Spain and the first Filipino president. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? During the latter part of her life she lived in Gagalangin, Tondo, birthplace of her husband, Amado V. Hernandez, himself a National Artist, whom she married in 1932. She was named a national artist of the Philippines in 1987, at the age of 85. De la Rama died on July 11, 1991. 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. On January 11, 1902, Honorata "Atang" de la Rama, National Artist for theater and music, was born in Pandacan, Manila. performing alongside other leading stage performers such as Atang de la Rama. 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. In the dramas final act, the playwright imagines a Philippines in a state of regression under a female-led government. 18 Tiongson similarly underlines de la Ramas flirtatious performance as he reconstructs the artists rendition of Nabasag ang Banga. See Nicanor Tiongson, Atang de la Rama: Unat Huling Bituin (Pasay City, Philippines: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1987), 19. That was why Atang de la Ramas pocket was always empty [Emphasis in the original].Footnote68. Atang Dela Rama was born on 11 January 1905 in Manila, Philippines. Deflecting the advances of this suitor, Angelita elopes with her childhood sweetheart, the law student Cipriano. On September 4, 1915, a lengthy article on the foxtrot by American ballroom dancer Joan Sawyer appeared in the Manila weekly journal The Independent, complete with detailed instructions and suggestions for which music should accompany the dance.Footnote22 Incorporating a foxtrot in the sarsuwela also points to a standard practice of using globally circulating popular musics in sarsuwela scores. 38 Santiago, The Development of Music in the Philippine Islands, 516. 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. 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. 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. 11 Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt, eds., Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017), 2. By the age of 7 she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota Sueo de un Vals and Marina. She was an actress, known for Dalagang bukid (1919), Mahiwagang binibini: Ang kiri (1939) and Oriental Blood (1930). De la Ramas fame as the Queen of Kundiman spread beyond Manila as she embarked on several extended tours abroad in 1926, 1932, and 1936. Soon after, fighting broke out between American and Filipino forces, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Filipino military and civilians. 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). Motoe Terami-Wada also mentions de la Ramas stage engagements in 1943 during the Japanese Occupation where she led sarsuwela performances through the auspices of the organization Musical Philippines. 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. 5 The playwright Severino Reyes was among the early advocates of the Tagalog sarsuwela who produced didactic works that were critical of Spanish colonialism. This later version of the balintawak developed strong associations with the rural countryside such as the town of Antipolo where the more affluent Manileos would visit for summer jaunts and picnics.Footnote57, Figure 1. Proseguid, vuestro viaje, para dar a conocer a otras naciones y a los blancos nuestra capacidad para toda clase de menesteres, y que tambin tenemos artistas de quienes podemos enorgullecernos!. Besides here, his angelic voice also came . 73 De la Rama penned several sarsuwela scripts including Dalagang Silanganan (Maid of the East), Diwata ng Ipugaw (Fairy of Ifugao), and Anak ni Eba (Daughter of Eve). Her real . For de la Rama, the terno became an essential component of her musical performances for both local and international audiences: I have always believed that the panuelo is an indispensable part of the Filipino terno and that without it the terno is incomplete. Some of the notable composers of this early sarsuwela repertoire were Jos Estella, Juan de Sahagun Hernandez, and Fulgencio Tolentino. He remarks on how the phrase became a popular idiom among the Tagalog-speaking public, who found the phrase more pleasing to the ear and a more appropriate substitute to saying losing ones virginity in public. She often looks out for those who distract her when she sings in the theater, and the moment she finishes, she goes down the stage and slaps whoever heckles her many times over. For a detailed account of the different theater venues that staged Spanish and Tagalog repertoire throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Cristina Lacnico-Buenaventura, The Theater in Manila, 1846-1946 (Manila: De La Salle University Press, 1994). 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. Along with other major colonial ports such as Hong Kong, Batavia, and Singapore, Manila became part of a broader theatrical circuit of traveling opera companies, circuses, and minstrel shows in the Pacific region.Footnote33 At the turn of the twentieth century, variety shows were staged in different contexts including performances by American soldiers as part of their military entertainment as well as productions by traveling companies that catered to the general public.Footnote34, By the 1920s and 1930s, bodabil featured a mix of song, dance, and theatrical sketch performances by foreign-born and Filipino artists alike. 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. 54 Ignacio Manlapaz, Philippines Herald (April 1934). National Commission for Culture and the Arts. al., Fashionable Filipinas, 141. While Reyes extols the virtue and bravery of the Filipina, especially in her contributions to the revolution against Spain, he nevertheless reaffirms that the only natural place for women is in the home. Original text: Ay naku! See Doreen Fernandez, Zarzuela to Sarswela: Indigenization and Transformation, Philippine Studies 41, no. It is good that I am broad-minded and I knew that he helped the poor and the workers. 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). Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. 51 From Lacnico-Buenaventuras 1985 interview with de la Rama. national hometown : pandacan artist manila award type of art : for theater and theater music and music tools and materials : (1987) music and films why is the artists' art artistic, distinctive, and of superior quality? For other contemporary academic critiques to jazz, see Keppy, Tales of Southeast Asias Jazz Age, 8283. In Dalagang Bukid, de la Rama played the part of Angelita, a young girl working as a flower vendor who embodied the virtuous Filipina amidst the backdrop of Manilas bustling nightlife. 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. She died six months after her birthday Rama passed away on July 11, 1991, which was exactly six months after her 89th birthday. This recording is most likely a digitized copy of rare 78s housed in the collection of Nestor Vera Cruz, owner of the Yesteryears Music Gallery in Quezon City, Philippines. (Manila: Paredes, 1923). 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. 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. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un . She died on 11 July 1991 in the Philippines. 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. Conferring the National Artist Award on Atang de la Rama, President Aquino says that the best in culture and the arts is achieved in a climate of political freedom.
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