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). Dalagang bukid (1919) - IMDb 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. 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. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. The balintawak, with its prominent sleeves and translucent fabric paired with a shawl wrapped around the waist, was the everyday clothing of the lower and middle working classes in the first decades of the twentieth century. Becks store sold radios and phonographs and was the distributor of Columbia records in Manila. In the program for the 1919 benefit production of Dalagang Bukid, de la Rama is pictured wearing a balintawak dress (see Figure 1). 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. Permission is granted subject to the terms of the License under which the work was published. Atang Dela Rama was born on 11 January 1905 in Manila, Philippines. 46 Ibid. 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. Makalawa na niyang ginawa ito at umaasa siyang magpatuloy habang ang mga nanonood sa dulaan ay hindi natututong magpakatino.. Her consistent pairing of the Filipino dress, the terno, with global beauty trends in makeup and hairstyles revealed a self-fashioning practice that was simultaneously modern and traditional, Filipino and cosmopolitan. De la Ramas personal writings hint that she engaged directly in this balancing act between private and public life. 45 El Poder del Kundiman, Philippines Free Press (August 21, 1926). 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. Original text is in English. They are. She was the producer and the writer of plays such as Anak ni Eva and Bulaklak ng Kabundukan. 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. 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. Atang Dela Rama - Biography - IMDb Atang de la Rama - Age, Birthday, Biography & Facts | HowOld.co 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. Of all the many roles she played and stages on which she appeared, her performance in Dalagang Bukid remains her greatest and most memorable success.Footnote72 But a more comprehensive account of her creative and artistic breadth reveals an artist with a keen understanding of performance both on and off the stage. For de la Rama, however, her self-fashioning style became an integral component of her status as a celebrity and a commanding artist. She soon became a solo headliner, performing in Manila's largest theaters such as the Savoy, the Palace, and the Lux. 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. 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. 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 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 . To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. 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. p. 97-109. 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. 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. 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. Honorata "Atang" Dela Rama - Provincial Government of Bulacan 2. The sarsuwela (also labeled in the Tagalog as opereta by its librettist Hermogenes Ilagan) was set to music by de la Ramas brother-in-law Leon Ignacio. Si Adan sa Paraiso (Man!!! I use the feminine form Filipina to mean Filipino women and, more specifically, the work of de la Rama in relation to the history of cultural nationalism in the Philippines. Among the highlights of the production was the song performed by de la Rama, Awit ng Pagkahibang (Delirium Song) in the second act. Film historian Nick Deocampo remarks how her debut on the sarsuwela stage as dalagang bukid convinced the films director, Jose Nepomuceno, to cast her. She was an actress, known for Dalagang bukid (1919), Mahiwagang binibini: Ang kiri (1939) and Oriental Blood (1930). Figure 2. 1 (1981): 7788, at 83. In her introduction to an essay collection on technology and the figure of the diva, musicologist Karen Henson remarks on how the diva is created when sopranos, audience members and one or more technologies come together. In this process, the visual replaces the aural and refutes the notion that the divas authenticity only resides in the pure power of the voice and vocal expression.Footnote55 De la Ramas celebrity photographs became a crucial medium in which her images circulated, creating a diverse set of audiences beyond those who witnessed her on the theatrical stage. 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. 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. 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. Who Is Atang Dela Rama? - The Philippines Today [2], Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. 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. Birth anniversary of National Artist Atang de la Rama 64 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 224. 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. 6 See, for example, Patricia Marion Lopez, Imaging Women in the Zarzuela, Philippine Humanities Review: Sarsuwela 11, no. She navigated the theatrical stages of sarsuwela and bodabil fluidly, occasionally writing and producing shows herself. 47 Savoy Nifties New Spanish Ballet, The Tribune (January 24, 1925). I am especially indebted to Pamela Potter, Christi-Anne Castro, Susan Cook, Anne Shreffler, Elaine Fitz Gibbon, Elisabeth Reisinger, David Miller, and Frederick Schenker. Atang de la Rama - geni family tree 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. 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 . 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. Atang Dela Rama - IMDb Atang de la Rama Collection: Manuscripts Home: Contents; Personal Papers -- Amado V. Hernanadez . 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. 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. Cultural Center of the Philippines. Atang Dela Rama is a national artist for theater and music queen of kundiman. Photographs of de la Rama aided her popularity locally and abroad and served as additional sites for her performance of Filipina femininity. This approach allows me to situate the sarsuwela stage as part of a growing industry that included vaudeville, early cinema, sound recording, and radio. But how can you remain relaxed at home on that night, knowing that Atang celebrates her gala of honor? The National Artists of the Philippines. 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. The centennial of local movies is celebrated this year, 2019.. Confident in her languid disregard for the composers melody, she renders a playful, flirtatious version of the song. 1/2 (1997): 12850, at 141. 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. Wilfredo Ma. National Commission for Culture and the Arts. 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). (n.d.). (2002). Anvil Publishing.2004. 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. and National Commission for Culture and the Arts. 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. 65 Roces, Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct, 37. 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. 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. 28 In Sesangs first entrance at the opening party scene, for example, the libretto instructs the actor to appear in a dress dcolletage (nakabestidong escotado). 59 Gonzales et. In the dramas final act, the playwright imagines a Philippines in a state of regression under a female-led government. 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. 3 (1993): 32043; and Nicanor Tiongson, A Short History of the Philippine Sarsuwela (1879-2009), Philippine Humanities Review: Sarsuwela 11, no. She frequently performed at rallies and events organized by various womens groups like Panitik Kababaihan (a womens literary society), Kaisahan ng Kababaihan sa Pilipinas (where she served as president), the Women Auxiliary of the Confederation of Labor Organization, and the Ladies Association in her hometown of Gagalangin, Tondo. Such bodabil performances not only complicate de la Ramas image as the virtuous dalagang bukid but they also illustrate the overlapping networks of different popular entertainment circuits in the Philippines in the 1920s and 1930s. Ruth A. Solie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 22558. Si Ka Amado, labor leader, konsehal, makata, manunulat. 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. The characteristic bitin or prolonged delivery of cadential phrase endings mentioned earlier, for example, echo vocal techniques heard in de la Ramas own recordings. 54 Ignacio Manlapaz, Philippines Herald (April 1934). 34 Doreen Fernandez, Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1996), 88. To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below. De la Cruz also appeared in films and received a FAMAS Best Supporting Actress Award in 1953. 58 Roces, Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct, 3233. Also, Renato Lucas, A Preliminary Annotation of Selected Discography by Filipino Artists, 19131946, Journal of the Arts, Culture, and the Humanities 3, no. 2 (2010): 35988, at 361. al., Fashionable Filipinas, 141. Although this pairing was at times fraught with rumors of domestic quarrels, de la Rama and Hernandez remained together, even after Hernandez was imprisoned for six years in the 1950s on charges of rebellion and associations with the communist movement.Footnote67 In one of her more candid postwar interviews, de la Rama spoke of how she supported the social causes that her husband championed: Oh, Ka Amado was a labor leader, councilor, poet, writer. 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. 35 El Declinar del Teatro Nativo, La Vanguardia (March 5, 1932). 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. 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. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. 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. De la Rama on the front cover of The Womans Outlook (July 1926 Issue). At the meeting, de la Rama sang kundimans in honor of the voluntary exiles. Moved to tears, the account continues, Ricarte said to de la Rama this is the first time in I dont know how long that Ive heard one of our kundimans. 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. As scholars of gender and womens history in the Philippines have argued, the early twentieth century is crucial in understanding how women were at the forefront of colonial encounters that ultimately shaped Philippine modernity and Filipinos struggles against and within the United States empire.Footnote9 Historian Genevieve Clutario, in particular, draws attention to how women used fashion and beauty regimens that did not neatly align with those imposed by the American colonial regime or those of Filipino nationalists who opposed womens suffrage and saw it as another form of American intervention.Footnote10 As a professional artist, de la Rama became a recognizable figure of the womens movement, serving as a model for the Filipina at work outside of the home. 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. MUSIC please help me() Although one can read a certain conservatism in de la Ramas disdain for the knee-length skirt, her insistence on wearing the terno became an integral part of her performing her own femininity and Filipino identity. singer 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. 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. This and all other translations are mine. The most notable of these were Sakay, Anak Dalita, Kandelerong Pilak, Sergeant Hasan, Destination Vietnam, and The Evil Within. Lahat na lang ng di mapagkakakitaan, nasa kanya na. But de la Ramas success in Dalagang Bukid ushered in a renewal of the lyrical stage with works by other emerging playwrights such as Precioso Palmas Paglipas ng Dilim (After the Darkness, 1920), Julian Cruz Balmacedas Sa Bunganga ng Pating (In the Sharks Jaws, 1921), and Servando de los Angeless Alamat ng Nayon (Legend of the Town, 1925). This treaty ceded the Philippines (along with Puerto Rico and Guam) to the United States in the aftermath of the Spanish-American war. Hence, it is in Atang de la Ramas performance, her creative authorship, that the sarsuwelas are made real. Such self-fashioning carried political significance, especially during the resurgence of nationalism and in the emerging womens movement during the 1920s and 1930s in the Philippines. Orphaned at an early age, she grew up under the care of an elder sister who was married to a zarzuela composer where she was constantly exposed to the zarzuela. See Gino Gonzales et. HONORATA "ATANG" DE LA RAMA (1902-1991) National Artist Menu. 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. 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. Honorata Rama-Hernandez (January 11, 1902 - Prabook 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. 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.
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