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She became the very first actress in the very first . 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. For other contemporary academic critiques to jazz, see Keppy, Tales of Southeast Asias Jazz Age, 8283. After de la Ramas debut in Dalagang Bukid, she performed in a succession of works that revitalized the lackluster Tagalog sarsuwela scene in Manila, which had experienced a downturn in the 1910s. 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. As a localized form of the Spanish zarzuela,Footnote3 the sarsuwela flourished in the archipelago through the work of playwrights, composers, and artists who projected the mundane and the political in their everyday colonial experience under occupation by the United States.Footnote4 Early advocates of the sarsuwela envisioned the genre as a vehicle for moral and cultural uplift of its local audience in a bid to establish a national theater.Footnote5 Tagalog-language repertoire from the first decades of the twentieth century ranged from critiques of colonialism and its legacies of blind religiosity and superstition of the native population to various vices such as alcoholism, gambling, and prostitution among Manilas emerging working class. Her vocal training in a variety of styles including Italian opera combined well with the idiosyncrasies and theatricality of the Tagalog language. 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 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. 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. 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 works of Severino Reyes (18611942), one of the foremost playwrights of the Tagalog sarsuwela, are exemplary. 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. 41 See Antonio C. Hila, Ramon P. Santos, and Arwin Q. Tan, Kundiman, in Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, 2nd ed., ed. 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. As Roces argues, for the new class of working and professional women, [m]odernization required the abandonment of traditional dress when performing modern tasks.Footnote61, Figure 3. 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. Similarly, de la Rama remains a crucial figure in the early history of cinema in the Philippines, even as she herself was starting out on the sarsuwela stage. Besides here, his angelic voice also came . 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). 33 See also Matthew Wittman, Empire of Culture: U.S. Also formally recognized as a National Artists for Theater and Music by Former President Corazon Aquino for Honorita's love . 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. Nicanor Tiongson (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2018). 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. 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. 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. 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. Since this award holds up the recipient to public honor and recognition by Ateneo de Manila University, the personal integrity and moral qualities of the honoree should also be considered, as honorees of the university are meant to be held up as models in their own lines of endeavor. 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. 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. 3 (1993): 32043, at 331. 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. Their repartee turns into de la Rama singing about the method of cooking the rice cake with fire below and on top and how her bibingka is much sought after for its extra stickiness and its full toppings of egg and cheese. Atang dela Rama is billed 'The First Star of Philippine Cinema' as she portrayed the title role in Dalagang Bukid in 1919. She is hailed as the Queen of Kundiman in 1979 at the tender age of 79. 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. Doreen Fernandez and Jonathan Chua (Manila: Office of Research and Publications, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University, 2000), 20721, at 212. An article from 1932 in Manilas Spanish-language newspaper La Vanguardia, for example, announced the decline of the sarsuwela due to the profane and good for nothing vaudeville.Footnote35 Such commentaries underline the debates between high and low art that preoccupied composers and intellectuals of the period, and express their anxieties about American influence. 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. I regret I am not seen often enough attending cultural events. 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]. 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. On January 11, 1902, Honorata "Atang" de la Rama, National Artist for theater and music, was born in Pandacan, Manila. As Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt have remarked, the ascendancy of women as performers paralleled, and in some cases generated, developments in wider society such as suffrage, social and sexual liberation, and women as business entrepreneurs and independent income earners and as models for new lifestyles.Footnote11 De la Ramas performing career on the multiple stages of musical theater and popular entertainment in the Philippines richly illustrates this dynamic. Following her leading role debut in Dalagang Bukid, de la Rama had gained a reputation that quickly spread among the theater-going public of Manila. 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). 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. Her parents came from Negros Occidental. 36 Ang Wika at mga Tugtugin, Bagong Lipang Kalabaw (October 7, 1922). Born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1905, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina by the age of five. 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. Also, Renato Lucas, A Preliminary Annotation of Selected Discography by Filipino Artists, 19131946, Journal of the Arts, Culture, and the Humanities 3, no. al., Fashionable Filipinas, 141. 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. Atang dela Rama Born Honorata de la Rama January 11, 1905 Tondo, Manila, Philippine Islands Died July 11, 1991 (aged 86) Manila, Philippines Occupation Filipino singer and actress Years active 1919-1956 Spouse(s) Amado V. Hernandez Awards National Artist for Theater and Music 1987 Atang de la Rama was born in Tondo, Manila on January 11, 1905. De la Ramas personal writings hint that she engaged directly in this balancing act between private and public life. 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). Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. We use cookies to improve your website experience. For more information please visit our Permissions help page. 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. Louise Edwards and Mina Roces (London; New York, NY: Taylor and Francis, 2004), 2458. De la Rama was a force to be reckoned with, and hers was an indefatigable presence that persisted in the distinct (but still loosely connected) networks of the sarsuwela stage, vaudeville, film, and radio. 37 See Francisco Santiago, The Development of Music in the Philippine Islands (Manila: The Institute of Pacific Relations, 1931), 16. Queen of the Kundiman and. 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. 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 1987 she was inducted into the pantheon of National Artists in the Philippines, the highest award for arts and culture given by the national government. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. Her distinctive voice, stage presence, and memorable portrayal of the country maiden inspired the creation of a new repertoire of Tagalog sarsuwelas and gave momentum to the lyrical stage, just as other types of entertainment like vaudeville and cinema were gaining popularity in the Philippines in the early 1920s. Wilfredo Ma. 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. See Helen F. Samson-Lauterwald, Music in the Sarsuwelas of Severino Reyes (Lola Basyang) (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2016). In the dramas final act, the playwright imagines a Philippines in a state of regression under a female-led government. 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 . 22 The article was derived from a booklet published by Columbia Gramophone Company with a letter written by Sawyer, dated November 23, 1914. 66 Personal Papers, Statements, and Reports Folder, Atang de la Rama Collection, National Library of the Philippines (http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00111373/datejpg1.htm, 4). 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 . 48 This survey is from various sources: Yesteryear Recording Kamuning: Remastered (see footnote 17); Elizabeth Enriquez, Appropriation of Colonial Broadcasting: A History of Early Radio in the Philippines, 1922-1946 (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2008), 213; Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 497. She soon became a solo headliner, performing in Manila's largest theaters such as the Savoy, the Palace, and the Lux. : Defining The Filipino Woman in Colonial Philippines, in Womens Suffrage in Asia: Gender, Nationalism and Democracy, eds. 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. These and most of the other sarsuwelas in which de la Rama performed were composed by Leon Ignacio, the foremost sarsuwela composer of the 1920s. She died on 11 July 1991 in the Philippines. This treaty ceded the Philippines (along with Puerto Rico and Guam) to the United States in the aftermath of the Spanish-American war. 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. 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). 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. Reflecting on the domestic and economic concerns of the working woman, she commented: It is not for selfish motives that a Filipino woman works and gets a job but it is because of the burning love she has for the poor suffering husband and the spirit of cooperation that compels her to do so. performing alongside other leading stage performers such as Atang de la Rama. De la Ramas performances transformed the kundiman into a particularly potent musical and cultural symbol of Filipino identity. Lahat na lang ng di mapagkakakitaan, nasa kanya na. 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. 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. 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. The centennial of local movies is celebrated this year, 2019.. Following the Second World War, de la Rama continued to star in film and she hosted her own radio show in the 1950s.Footnote70 In the 1960s and 1970s, moreover, she contributed significantly to the restaging of prewar sarsuwelas and she availed herself freely as a resource for younger performers and theater companies. The characteristic bitin or prolonged delivery of cadential phrase endings mentioned earlier, for example, echo vocal techniques heard in de la Ramas own recordings. 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. Today marks the 28th death anniversary of the Philippines massive star, Honorata "Atang" de la Rama born on January 11, 1902, and died in 1991. 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. In 1938, she formed her own theatrical group, the Compaia De la Rama, which staged sarsuwela repertoire and some Tagalog adaptations of European repertoire such as Puccinis Madama Butterfly.Footnote52 She wrote and directed shows for the bodabil stage which featured a mix of jazz and blues songs with Tagalog repertoire that she performed. 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. Ignacio Manlapazs description of her in the Philippines Herald is illustrative: Atang de la Rama helps in the eradication of untoward behavior of theatergoers and that they may learn to respect the art of acting. 8 Hilary Poriss, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 23 Nicanor Tiongson, Atang de la Rama: Unat Huling Bituin, Liwayway (March 10, 1980). 10 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 2. She fought for the advancement of the art for everyone so she brought the kundiman and sarsuela not only in big theaters in Manila but also in cockpit arena and plazas in the provinces and in the distant places of the natives. 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. The most notable of these were Sakay, Anak Dalita, Kandelerong Pilak, Sergeant Hasan, Destination Vietnam, and The Evil Within. Angelitas parents plan to marry her off to the much older and wealthy loan shark Don Silvestre. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. The solo Nabasag ang Banga (The Clay Jar Broke) from the first act provides a description of Angelitas character. 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. 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. 52 El Teatro Tagalo Emergera Como Un Nuevo Ave Fenix, La Opinion (March 16, 1938). She firmly believed . 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. 2 (2010): 35988, at 361. 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). For a fascinating study on commemoration, prestige, and nation-building in the National Artist Award in the Philippines, see Neal D. Matherne, Naming the Artist, Composing the Philippines: Listening for the Nation in the National Artist Award, (PhD dissertation, University of California, Riverside, 2014). Castros remarks on the artists rendition of Awit ng Pagkahibang and the reactions it elicited from the audience drives home the centrality of performance in the conception of a musical and theatrical work. "Atang" de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. Another way to consider de la Ramas performance and creation of Filipina nationalism is through the image of the diva and the symbolic power it carried. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. 25 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 25657. [1] Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. 15 Susan Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela: Performing Race and Gender on Havanas Lyric Stage (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 7.