group 4 theater it is the direction, performance and/or production design the roster ofnational artists (theater) honorata 'atang' dela rama. 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. TV Shows. 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. 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. Perhaps the most remarkable review comes from Maria Luisas author, Remigio Mat Castro, published in the Tagalog paper Pagkakaisa: If Maria Luisa is praised and enjoyed, I can only say that, as its author, I am indebted to Atang de la Rama, who is a true miracle in her role from the first act of the play until the end more so when she sang the song of madness Jesus One hears from all corners of the theater the audience crying and the mute sighs of their pent-up emotions.Footnote32. 54 Ignacio Manlapaz, Philippines Herald (April 1934). Honorata "ATANG" dela Rama - Philippine Artists,Traditions and Culture Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. 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. 25 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 25657. Some of the notable composers of this early sarsuwela repertoire were Jos Estella, Juan de Sahagun Hernandez, and Fulgencio Tolentino. Whether Ilagan intended the double entendre or not, it is likely that de la Ramas rendition and continued performance of the song was the true source for the broken jug euphemism. Upon landing in a job she, however, either chooses to be financially independent of her husband (this usually happens when relations of husband and wife are [estranged]) or to remain a dependent of the husband.Footnote66. Remembering The Philippines Biggest Star: Atang De La Rama 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. 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. De la Rama died on July 11, 1991. Hence, it is in Atang de la Ramas performance, her creative authorship, that the sarsuwelas are made real. Original text: Ay naku! 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. Historical accounts of the 1919 Dalagang Bukid film version remark on how de la Rama, on occasion, performed the songs live and in synchrony with the film.Footnote51 In this early beginning of commercial cinema in the Philippines, it was de la Ramas voice from behind the curtain that provided the emotional depth to the novelty of images being projected on the screen. At the age of 15, she starred in the sarsuela Dalagang Bukid, where she became known for singing the song "Nabasag na Banga". 8 Hilary Poriss, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 14 From the typescript of the play Tatlong Babae: Ang Babae Bukas, act 3, p. 9, Severino Reyes Collection, Cultural Center of the Philippines Library and Archives, Pasay City, Philippines. 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. Throughout the sarsuwela, the urbanization of Manila and its perceived vices are placed in subtle contrast against the idyllic image of the countryside represented through the character of Angelita. One particular song recording, the duet Bibingka (a type of Filipino rice cake delicacy), is particularly illustrative in demonstrating de la Ramas jazzy vaudevillian character. 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. 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. 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. This consisted of a top called the camisa, the saya skirt, and the pauelo, which evolved from a functional modesty shawl into a more decorative lapel sewn onto the camisa.Footnote59 The traje de mestiza was worn by upper class Filipino women and was reserved for evening- and formalwear. 3 (1993): 32043; and Nicanor Tiongson, A Short History of the Philippine Sarsuwela (1879-2009), Philippine Humanities Review: Sarsuwela 11, no. Her direct address to potential audiences reflected a bold and confident voice that knew how and when to play the crowd. 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. Honorata "Atang" Marquez de la Rama-Hernandez. Queen of the Kundiman and. See Lacnico-Buenaventura, The Theater in Manila, 88. 16 In his first solo, Romansa, Cipriano refers to Angelita as his banal na Birhen (holy Virgin [Mary]). Details Release date September 25, 1919 (Philippines) Country of origin Philippines Her parents came from Negros Occidental. 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. A democratic republic is one which guarantees the freedom to create, with no special instruction attached. For other contemporary academic critiques to jazz, see Keppy, Tales of Southeast Asias Jazz Age, 8283. A copy of the playbill can be found in Adlai Laras personal Flickr photo collection,https://www.flickr.com/photos/9307819@N05/2544474500/in/photostream/ (accessed October 3, 2019). 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. As a form of denouement, a woman revolutionary general successfully overthrows the government and then promptly declines to take office; instead she urges her fellow women to go back to their true duties: rebuilding the home and the Filipino population.Footnote14 This reactionary narrative echoes musicologist Susan Thomass description of Cuban zarzuelas anti-feminist but pro-feminine plots in which playwrights relied on their female protagonists and the artistry of the female voice while continuing to uphold a peculiar set of social, political, and economic conditions which hinged on the role and behavior of women in Cuban society.Footnote15 As Filipino playwrights sought to create a world that mirrored the dramas of middle-class domestic life and the patriarchal social order of early-twentieth century Manila, the roles de la Rama performed reveal an intentional revision of gendered identities that rebelled against traditional expectations of womens behavior. 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]. 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). [3], During the American occupation of the Philippines, Atang de la Rama fought for the dominance of the kundiman, an important Philippine folk song, and the sarsuela, which is a musical play that focused on contemporary Filipino issues such as usury, cockfighting, and colonial mentality. 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. BIBINGKA by Honorata Atang de la Rama - YouTube The patriotic anthem Bayan Ko (My Country), perhaps the most famous and enduring kundiman in Philippine music history, was also popularized by de la Rama.Footnote42 Yet standard accounts ignore the critical role she played, instead tracing the development of the kundiman from its origins in a handful of songs created during the Revolutionary period at the turn of the twentieth century to the art songs of the conservatory composers. (2002). 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. She is still the Atang de la Rama of the popular Dalagang Bukid.Footnote31 Vera Reyess observations reveal how, after nearly a decade, de la Ramas reputation and early success in Dalagang Bukid remained fresh with theater goers in Manila, even as de la Rama had moved on to portray other characters, and after she had become popular in the thriving vaudeville stages of Manila in the mid1920s. 17 The recording I used for this analysis is a compact disc compilation entitled Kamuning: Re-mastered (Quezon City: Yesteryears Music Gallery, 2000). The Filipino dresss butterfly sleeves and abac fabric made of banana tree fibers (also called Manila hemp) were considered impractical for the modern workplace. 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. Angelitas parents plan to marry her off to the much older and wealthy loan shark Don Silvestre. Original text: Atang, sta es la primera vez desde hace no s cuanto tiempo que oigo un kundiman nuestro. This short song features de la Ramas use of vocal slides and a gruff timbre that intensifies as she sings the final verse: What seemed like an innocent and playful depiction of the mundane becomes tinged with innuendo as de la Ramas rendition of the final verse elicits boisterous and knowing laughter from her partner Ocampo. 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. She was also at the forefront of introducing Filipino culture to foreign audiences. The perception that suffragists also had strong support from American colonial officials (such as Governor General Francis Burton Harrison) added to the political tensions. 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. Copies of her comedy sketches includes a short skit entitled Lalake!!! 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. See also Fernandez, Palabas, 8889. 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 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]. Ki a kundiman s zarzuela kirlynje? Doreen Fernandez and Jonathan Chua (Manila: Office of Research and Publications, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University, 2000), 20721, at 212. 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. She soon became a solo headliner, performing in Manila's largest theaters such as the Savoy, the Palace, and the Lux. I am especially indebted to Pamela Potter, Christi-Anne Castro, Susan Cook, Anne Shreffler, Elaine Fitz Gibbon, Elisabeth Reisinger, David Miller, and Frederick Schenker. Within this tension between the urban and the rural, representations of women often invoked expectations of Filipina femininity that conveyed a nostalgia for the pastoral lifestyle, a reaction to perceived encroachments of the foreign and the modern onto traditional Filipino values. 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). These tensions between new and old, modern and traditional were mapped onto expectations of Filipina femininity against which de la Ramas performances continued to creatively rebel. 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. 3 (1993): 32043, at 331. 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. See Doreen Fernandez, Zarzuela to Sarswela: Indigenization and Transformation, Philippine Studies 41, no. The solo Nabasag ang Banga (The Clay Jar Broke) from the first act provides a description of Angelitas character. Atang de la Rama : definition of Atang de la Rama and synonyms of Atang Photographs of de la Rama aided her popularity locally and abroad and served as additional sites for her performance of Filipina femininity. 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. He initially established KZIB to advertise his merchandise and to help boost sales through entertainment, which he provided by tapping the local recording artists for Columbia, including de la Rama, as part of his regular music programming.Footnote49. 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 . Read full biography. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. 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. These concerns may have been reflecting the dynamics of De la Ramas own marriage to the poet and labor leader Amado Hernandez. Besides here, his angelic voice also came . In the drama, Angelita is often referred to as gentle and ladylike; she carries an aura of virtue and innocence about her as she sells flowers in Manilas unsavory cabaret districts.Footnote16. 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. Facebook Katy de la Cruz - Wikipedia De la Rama as dalagang bukid on the program cover for the December 7, 1919 benefit performance. 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. Through sarsuwela librettos and scores, rare sound recordings, reviews, publicity photos, and de la Ramas writings, I amplify her musical and metaphorical voice to address the critical role of women in the production of sarsuwelas and popular culture in the Philippines. A survey of her extant recordings yields a discography of thirty-five Tagalog songs, mostly for Columbia records, from the 1920s to the late 1930s.Footnote48 A number of these songs, like Nabasag ang Banga and Masayang Dalaga, originate in sarsuwelas while others are Tagalog folk and novelty songs and duets recorded with Vicente Ocampo. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. Newspaper Clippings Folder 3, Atang de la Rama Collection, National Library of the Philippines (http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/clippings/NLPADB00811486/datejpg1.htm, 7). Finding that his daughter has become pregnant out of wedlock, Justo inflicts the cruelest of punishments: he gives away her newborn daughter. 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. 53 Lalake!!! 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!. 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. In the closing verse, de la Rama performs with more urgency as the text describes the dance floor as a heaven where the bailarina sings of her dreams. Becks store sold radios and phonographs and was the distributor of Columbia records in Manila. 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. 2021 Felice P Sta Maria 2019 Danny E Dalena 2018 Her celebrity image and creative output arguably kept the Tagalog sarsuwela stage afloat, even in the midst of increasing competition from other forms of popular entertainment in the 1930s and toward the latter years of the American colonial period. 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. Literature on the history of Philippine music and the performing arts often cites the transformation of the kundiman from a type of folk song and dance into an important art song genre through the hands of composers like Bonifacio Abdon and conservatory-trained composers Francisco Santiago and Nicanor Abelardo in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Confident in her languid disregard for the composers melody, she renders a playful, flirtatious version of the song. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. Here, I use the term voice to mean two things: first, the distinctiveness of de la Ramas own voice, mediated through sound recordings and contemporary reviews, reinscribes the act of performance as a necessary locus of authorship traditionally reserved for (male) playwrights and composers. 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. 13 The womens movement in the Philippines further gained momentum in 1921 with the establishment of the National Federation of Womens Clubs that mobilized for suffrage. Atang dela Rama: 'The First Star of Philippine Cinema' - Philstar.com De la Ramas dual image of the traditional Filipina and the cosmopolitan professional artist strikingly parallels these multiple strategies, and her inclusion in the publication highlights how her rising status as an international celebrity lent particular potency to the idea of feminine progress in the Philippines.
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