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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. Read full biography. 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. 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. 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. 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. 2 (2010): 35988, at 361. 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]. 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. 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. To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below. 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. Atang Dela Rama was born on January 11, 1905 in Manila, Philippines. He was everything that didnt make money. At the age of 15, she starred in the sarsuela Dalagang Bukid, where she became known for singing the song "Nabasag na Banga". 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. MUSIC please help me() This and all other translations are mine. Ruth A. Solie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 22558. 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. p. 97-109. Nicanor Tiongson (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2018). No recording of this song has so far materialized, but reviews of the sarsuwela underline the effectiveness of de la Ramas performance. De la Ramas performances transformed the kundiman into a particularly potent musical and cultural symbol of Filipino identity. De la Rama was unique in successfully navigating these different performance platforms, allowing her to achieve a lasting career in Philippine theater and music throughout the twentieth century. Menu. 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. The works of Severino Reyes (18611942), one of the foremost playwrights of the Tagalog sarsuwela, are exemplary. 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. 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. Atang became the very first actress in the very first Tagalog film when she essayed the same role in the sarsuela's film version. She died six months after her birthday Rama passed away on July 11, 1991, which was exactly six months after her 89th birthday. We use cookies to improve your website experience. 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). Film historian Nick Deocampo remarks how her debut on the sarsuwela stage as dalagang bukid convinced the films director, Jose Nepomuceno, to cast her. Robert Schofield, then Dean of the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Philippines, asserted in 1922 that jazz was a sickness in the music of the Philippines, much like in the United States, and posed a danger to Filipino musicality.Footnote36 Outlining his vision for national music, Filipino composer Francisco Santiago also criticized the cheap dance music flooding the local music scene and warned against native composers adoption of American airs [] old cakewalk, the noisy march of Sousa, and the deafening and somewhat distorted jazz.Footnote37 Yet, ironically, Santiago also praised sarsuwela composers such as Juan Hernandez, Nicanor Abelardo, and Francisco Buencamino, all of whom had utilized jazz idioms in their compositions.Footnote38, De la Ramas performances on the bodabil stage, however, point to the critical role of the emerging popular entertainment industry in the very creation of a Filipino musical identity. She is hailed as the Queen of Kundiman in 1979 at the tender age of 79. 53 Lalake!!! 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. National Commission for Culture and the Arts. They are. Background Atang de la Rama was born in Tondo, Manila on January 11, 1905. 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. 64 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 224. 20 Remigio Mat Castro, Nabasag ang Banga? For dance: Francisca Aquino (1973), Leonor Goquingco (1976), Lucrecia Urtula (1988), and Alice Reyes (2014); for music: Jovita Fuentes (1976), Lucrecia Kasilag (1988), and Andrea Veneracion (1999); for theater: Daisy Avellana (1999) and Amelia Lapea-Bonifacio (2018). 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. 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. Anvil Publishing.2004. To them, the American characteristics deemed feminine were conflated with the modern woman: English-speaking, university-educated, a professional or a clubwoman active in civic work, and by the 1920s, a suffragist. 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. 68 Atang de la Rama: Sarsuwela Star, Philippine Panorama (August 28, 1983). (2002). 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. 12 (2004): 75106, at 9798. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. 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. Adam in Paradise) that is set on an island full of women, all of whom pursued a stranded and hapless man with a mix of enticing dialogs, songs, and comedic repartees.Footnote53 This is a side of de la Ramas stage career that is not well known, one that stands in striking contrast to her reputation as the demure country maiden. (Manila: Paredes, 1923). Standard historical accounts often point to Severino Reyess shift in his writing career to become a journalist and editor in the early 1920s as the beginning of sarsuwelas decline, just as vaudeville and film were becoming more popular in the Philippines. Such standardization of the classical kundiman includes a slow triple meter and a three-part form structure (the first two sections set in minor and the final section in the parallel major), which mirror the poetic narrative of anti-colonial struggle.Footnote41. 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. 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. Named National Artist in 1987, Atang de la Rama was a star of vaudeville in the 30s, or 'bodabil' in these parts. Also formally recognized as a National Artists for Theater and Music by Former President Corazon Aquino for Honorita's love . About: Atang de la Rama - DBpedia 2. While playwrights and composers at the turn of the twentieth century used the term zarzuela for their Tagalog-language works, the term sarsuwela (alternatively spelled sarswela or sarsuela) did not come into use until the late 1910s and early 1920s and, by then, were often used interchangeably with opereta. In this essay, I follow scholars Nicanor Tiongson and Doreen Fernandez in their use of sarsuwela as a general term to mean works produced in any of the local languages in the Philippines, including Tagalog-language repertoire, from the early 1900s to the present. 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. Si Adan sa Paraiso (Man!!! By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. 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. 25 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 25657. She was also at the forefront of introducing Filipino culture to foreign audiences. 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. 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. It is good that I am broad-minded and I knew that he helped the poor and the workers. 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. 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. Ang Kiri is an example of a subset of sarsuwelas from this period that contrasted urban cosmopolitan Manila with the idyllic countryside. 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. 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. 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. Permission will be required if your reuse is not covered by the terms of the License. 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. This double image of the Filipina is woven throughout de la Ramas other publicity photos. Trivia (7) As Queen of Zarzuela, she starred in more than 50 zarzuelas. 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. Formal U.S. occupation of the archipelago ended in 1946 with the declaration of Philippine Independence, while the influence of the American empire in the Philippines continued long after. 63 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, 5. She did this twice already and she hopes to continue doing so until all who comes to watch her learns to behave properly.Footnote54. Her work highlights the role of the performer as an equally important locus of creative authorship as that ascribed to playwrights and composers. In the program for the 1919 benefit production of Dalagang Bukid, de la Rama is pictured wearing a balintawak dress (see Figure 1). Figure 2. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. 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). 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. 17 The recording I used for this analysis is a compact disc compilation entitled Kamuning: Re-mastered (Quezon City: Yesteryears Music Gallery, 2000). 2021 Felice P Sta Maria 2019 Danny E Dalena 2018 Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. 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. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. 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. De la Rama was instrumental in the popularization of the Tagalog song repertory across these different entertainment platforms; she activated voice and image to play a central role in creating a Filipina femininity in the 1920s that challenged expectations of womens work as solely devoted to home and family life. : Defining The Filipino Woman in Colonial Philippines, in Womens Suffrage in Asia: Gender, Nationalism and Democracy, eds. 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. Personal Papers, Untitle [sic] Folder, Atang de la Rama Collection, National Library of the Philippines (http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00111378/datejpg1.htm, 2). 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. 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. Atang de la Rama Collection: Manuscripts Home: Contents; Personal Papers -- Amado V. Hernanadez . 54 Ignacio Manlapaz, Philippines Herald (April 1934). 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. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? 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. 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. Atang de la Rama. 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 . 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. 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). De la Ramas Angelita sheds the image of the delicate country girl who, as the common Tagalog idiom implies, cannot break a plate (di makabasag pinggan). The light timbral quality and the open sound of her voice all aid in the clear articulation of the text. 27 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 11011. 15 Susan Thomas, Cuban Zarzuela: Performing Race and Gender on Havanas Lyric Stage (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 7. Atang de la Rama - Wikiwand 34 Doreen Fernandez, Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1996), 88. 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). She was named a national artist of the Philippines in 1987, at the age of 85. 52 El Teatro Tagalo Emergera Como Un Nuevo Ave Fenix, La Opinion (March 16, 1938). 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. In his biography of Hernandez, Jun Cruz Reyes tells the story of two talented and well-known artists who were brought together on the stages of Tagalog poetry and drama. Birth anniversary of National Artist Atang de la Rama TRIVIA for the DAY: National Artist for Theater and Music (1987) Honorata "Atang" Dela Rama was formally honored as the Queen of Kundiman in 1979. In addressing performance as a source of creative power, I follow Carolyn Abbates theorization of how a musical work exists only as it is given phenomenal reality by its performers.Footnote7 It is through the artists voice and presence that the sarsuwelas texts and music come off the page and reach the audiences senses. 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. Finding that his daughter has become pregnant out of wedlock, Justo inflicts the cruelest of punishments: he gives away her newborn daughter. 67 Jun Cruz Reyes, Ka Amado (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2012), 15354, 25657. Spanish artists Elisea Raguer and Alejandro Cubero soon followed and were later responsible for training local artists such as Nemesio Ratia, Jos Carvajal, and Prxedes Yeyeng Fernndez, all of whom subsequently formed their own companies. 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. Breaking down stereotypes: The divas voice, On the multiple stages of popular entertainment, Creating Filipina nationalism: The divas image, https://doi.org/10.1080/01411896.2021.1992595, https://www.flickr.com/photos/9307819@N05/2544474500/in/photostream/, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/clippings/NLPADB00811486/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/NL02/NLPADGD40850fd/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00311420/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00111373/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00111378/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/home.htm, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health. Karen Henson (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1123, at 20. Her vocal training in a variety of styles including Italian opera combined well with the idiosyncrasies and theatricality of the Tagalog language. 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. 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. BIBINGKA by Honorata Atang de la Rama - YouTube Ki a kundiman s zarzuela kirlynje? 59 Gonzales et. This position ironically came from the male politicians advocating for independence. The other women awardees largely belonged to performing arts categories. 3 (1993): 32043, at 331. At the age of 15, she starred in the sarsuela Dalagang Bukid, where she became known for singing the song "Nabasag na Banga". 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. 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. 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). 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. 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. Honorata "Atang" Dela Rama - Provincial Government of Bulacan No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). This is significant when the use of fashion negotiated multiple aspects of Filipina femininity at a time when womens roles in the larger society were changing rapidly, and as de la Rama shaped her own professional career in the Philippines and abroad.