Yet throughout her life, de la Rama also actively took part in civic organizing, particularly for womens causes. [2], Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. Sesangs character as the former cabaret dancer embodies the modern, cosmopolitan woman of the 1920s, while scenes and costume details situate her worldly and morally questionable personality.Footnote28. Registered in England & Wales No. De la Ramas voice resonates through the writers own recollection as it vividly creates the experience of the sarsuwela for its audience. Atang de la Ramas singular voice, heard on the multiple stages of popular entertainment, asserts its own kind of authorship that challenges the common conception that creativity is the exclusive domain of the playwright or composer. I am not arguing that de la Ramas creative power and influence relies on her performance alone and that her work as an artist occludes her output as a writer: de la Rama left a rich and resonant archive of her original drafts of short stories, comedic sketches, personal essays, and sarsuwela librettos, evidence of a thriving intellectual life that accompanied her career in performance.Footnote73 Instead, what I am suggesting is that the artist herself has the authority over her own performancein all its aural and visual manifestationsfleshing out alternative ways of thinking about and listening to a musical and theatrical work. 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. This created what Roces considers a dilemma in which Filipina suffragists supported the nationalist project while lobbying for a (male-dominated) government that would only serve to disenfranchise them. 51 From Lacnico-Buenaventuras 1985 interview with de la Rama. 4 Over three hundred years of Spanish colonial occupation in the Philippines ended with the Philippine Revolution (1896-1898) and the Treaty of Paris of 1898. Confident in her languid disregard for the composers melody, she renders a playful, flirtatious version of the song. A careful study of the life and career of de la Rama fills a huge gap in the history of the performing arts in the Philippines that has emphasized male playwrights, composers, and political elites in their representations of the Filipina. Through sound recordings, reviews, photos, and her own writings, I amplify de la Ramas musical and metaphorical voice to address the important role of women in Philippine music and popular culture. In 1926, de la Rama performed with the Manila bandmaster Andres Baclig and his jazz band, the Manila Syncopators, in Honolulu.Footnote44 An account of de la Ramas travels abroad published in the Philippines Free Press highlighted the nationalist pride that such performances engendered and the critic reported at length about de la Ramas appearances as a goodwill mission of patriotic art.Footnote45 In the same 1926 tour, de la Rama made stops in Hong Kong and Yokohama, Japan prior to landing in Hawaii. De la Rama.Footnote2. Atang Dela Rama was born on 11 January 1905 in Manila, Philippines. I will never permit myself to be caught dead in a knee-length skirt, without the customary panuelo, and without camisa sleeves that look like the wings of a newly hatched grasshopper.Footnote63. 44 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 419. 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. 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 and all other translations are mine. 43 Peter Keppy, Tales of the Southeast Asian Jazz Age, 80. 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. 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. And she gets away with it.Footnote47 While there are only a few accounts of de la Ramas performances outside of the kundiman repertoire, recordings provide more information about the breadth of styles and repertoire in which she excelled. For other contemporary academic critiques to jazz, see Keppy, Tales of Southeast Asias Jazz Age, 8283. 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. 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. In this emotionally charged number, Anita discovers that her daughter is missing; she alternates between looking for her child and spiraling into manic laughter as Don Justo attempts, but fails, to comfort her. Dalagang Bukid showcases familiar scenes and social practices of early twentieth-century Manila, such as the cabaret and gambling, a favorite pastime of Angelitas parents, whose constant losses indebted them to Don Silvestre. Permission will be required if your reuse is not covered by the terms of the License. Courtesy of Butterscotch Auction, Newspaper accounts of her tours abroad included descriptions of de la Ramas appearance, revealing the medias tendency to focus on female singers physical looks more than on their musical talent. At the age of 14, Atang played as lead role in a sarsuela entitled "Dalagang Bukid" which was a hit during 1919. Although the text depicts an innocent and bucolic scene, de la Ramas performance of Nabasag ang Banga highlights a sexual subtext in which she plays teasingly with the demure and delicate dalagang bukid stereotype. When there was a strike, he would order sacks of rice and cans of biscuits and charge them to me. Atang dela Rama was a graduate of BS Pharmacy in 1922. (n.d.). Si Ka Amado, labor leader, konsehal, makata, manunulat. 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. Second, I chart her rise to stardom alongside the emerging political voice of the womens movement in the 1920s and 1930s to highlight how de la Rama helped create a robust Filipina nationalism through her work and image as a performer. 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. Her vocal training in a variety of styles including Italian opera combined well with the idiosyncrasies and theatricality of the Tagalog language. 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. De la Rama in different versions of the traje de mestiza and terno. This juxtaposition of urban and rural highlighted the ideals of Filipino women being challenged by the corrupting influences of foreign liberal views, often embodied in the character of the bailarina who navigated the world of cabarets (kabaret in the Tagalog scripts) and dance halls in Manilas nightlife. 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). 40 One of the earliest sources of the kundiman is found in Jos Honorato Lozanos lbum: Vistas de las Yslas Filipinas y Trages de sus Abitantes 1847, which featured two transcriptions of cundiman songs and an illustration of a scene with a dancing couple accompanied by a small ensemble of string and wind instruments. 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. Also formally recognized as a National Artists for Theater and Music by Former President Corazon Aquino for Honorita's love . Order of National Artists of the Philippines, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Atang_de_la_Rama&oldid=1130385614, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 29 December 2022, at 22:45. 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. In the program for the 1919 benefit production of Dalagang Bukid, de la Rama is pictured wearing a balintawak dress (see Figure 1). No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). The characteristic bitin or prolonged delivery of cadential phrase endings mentioned earlier, for example, echo vocal techniques heard in de la Ramas own recordings. Tamang sagot sa tanong: MUSIC please help me() - studystoph.com 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. See Tiongson, Atang de la Rama, 31. She died six months after her birthday Rama passed away on July 11, 1991, which was exactly six months after her 89th birthday. Makalawa na niyang ginawa ito at umaasa siyang magpatuloy habang ang mga nanonood sa dulaan ay hindi natututong magpakatino.. 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. First, I explore specific examples of character types that de la Rama popularized on the sarsuwela stage, focusing on how her performances vividly recreated and brought to life fictional representations of the Filipina. Her direct address to potential audiences reflected a bold and confident voice that knew how and when to play the crowd. 26 Sesang is labeled in the libretto as a dalagang haliparot, a descriptor for a young and licentious woman. Contemporary accounts portray de la Rama as a commanding authority on the theatrical stage. 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). Academics echoed similar critiques. occupation of the Philippines, Atang de la Wrote short stories in Tagalog Prima Donna of Filipino. It is good that I am broad-minded and I knew that he helped the poor and the workers. The sartorial imagery of the dalagang bukid became a standard for young women who had their portraits taken in the 1920s and 1930s, wearing balintawak with pastoral backgrounds and using props such as a banga or clay jug and baskets of flowers or produce. 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. Theater historian Nicanor Tiongson underscores the importance of Ignacio and de la Ramas relationship, and how he helped launch her career by guaranteeing her roles in sarsuwelas that he was commissioned to write.Footnote23 Yet it was also plausible that Ignacios career and the entire Tagalog sarsuwela scene in Manila took an upward turn because of de la Ramas successful debut in Dalagang Bukid. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. 1 Notes on terminology: I use Tagalog primarily to mean the language, while I use Filipino as descriptor for the people and Philippine culture more broadly. Original text: Ay naku! 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. 30 Maria Luisa was originally written by Remigio Mat Castro as a serialized short story for Liwayway magazine. On December 7, 1919, the Compaa Ilagan staged the Tagalog sarsuwelaFootnote1 Dalagang Bukid (Country Maiden) for the benefit of its star artist, Honorata Atang de la Rama (19021991), whose public entreaty can be found in the productions playbill: Beloved public: your dalagang bukid gives her benefit Sunday night If you come to see me I will cry with joy and delight; but if you do not honor me with your presence, I will truly mourn, much like how Angelita cries when she is disappointed with her beloved Cipriano. It came to represent idealized images of Filipina femininity found in the sarsuwelas.Footnote56 This photo invites further reading on how de la Ramas own image carries a powerful influence separate from that created for her by the sarsuwelas authors.