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. 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. I regret I am not seen often enough attending cultural events. 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. She became the very first actress in the very first . 37 See Francisco Santiago, The Development of Music in the Philippine Islands (Manila: The Institute of Pacific Relations, 1931), 16. Kung umaawit siya sa tanghalan ay laging minamataan niya ang mga gumagambala sa kanyang pag-awit, at sa sandaling makatapos ay nananaog siya sa ibaba at binabayaran ng mariing sampal sa mukha ang sinumang bumastos sa kanya. See Lacnico-Buenaventura, The Theater in Manila, 88. 3 (1993): 32043, at 331. 8 Hilary Poriss, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Academics echoed similar critiques. In the final repetition of the songs chorus, de la Rama plays out affective vocal nuances with the pronounced slowness of her delivery. A democratic republic is one which guarantees the freedom to create, with no special instruction attached. In addition to the sarsuwela and bodabil stages, de la Rama commanded an audience via emerging new media such as audio recordings, radio, and film. 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. The striking cabaret scenes portray glimpses of the leisurely life of young, middle-class men and of bailarinas. 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. By the late 1910s and early 1920s, sarsuwela repertoire mirrored anxieties around the urbanization of Manila in striking contrast to the idyllic rural countryside. Tamang sagot sa tanong: MUSIC please help me() - studystoph.com Atang de la Rama. 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. 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. 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. The second in the list is Punyal ni Rosa with 366 performances. 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. 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. De la Cruz also appeared in films and received a FAMAS Best Supporting Actress Award in 1953. 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. 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. 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. 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). [4], Generations of Filipino artists and audiences consider Atang de la Rama's vocal and acting talents as responsible for much of the success of original Filipino sarsuelas like Dalagang Bukid, and dramas like Veronidia. 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. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. 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). For de la Rama, the terno became an essential component of her musical performances for both local and international audiences: I have always believed that the panuelo is an indispensable part of the Filipino terno and that without it the terno is incomplete. Honorata "Atang" Marquez de la Rama-Hernandez. 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. The 1919 silent-film version of Dalagang Bukid, considered the first film largely produced and directed in the Philippines by Filipinos, capitalized on de la Ramas early success onstage as much as it propelled her career forward. 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). 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. On September 4, 1915, a lengthy article on the foxtrot by American ballroom dancer Joan Sawyer appeared in the Manila weekly journal The Independent, complete with detailed instructions and suggestions for which music should accompany the dance.Footnote22 Incorporating a foxtrot in the sarsuwela also points to a standard practice of using globally circulating popular musics in sarsuwela scores. Figure 4. In 1979, she was hailed as Queen of Kundiman, and in 1987, she was awarded as National Artist for Theater and Music. 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. Si Ka Amado, labor leader, konsehal, makata, manunulat. 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). Several commentators unabashedly praised the diva in the local press. I am especially indebted to Pamela Potter, Christi-Anne Castro, Susan Cook, Anne Shreffler, Elaine Fitz Gibbon, Elisabeth Reisinger, David Miller, and Frederick Schenker. [1] Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. 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). The other women awardees largely belonged to performing arts categories. 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. 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. Photographs of de la Rama aided her popularity locally and abroad and served as additional sites for her performance of Filipina femininity. 53 Lalake!!! : Defining The Filipino Woman in Colonial Philippines, in Womens Suffrage in Asia: Gender, Nationalism and Democracy, eds. 22 The article was derived from a booklet published by Columbia Gramophone Company with a letter written by Sawyer, dated November 23, 1914. 46 Ibid. Her real . Her performances on the sarsuwela stage refashioned stereotypical female characters. 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. During the American. 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. 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. 1/2 (1997): 12850, at 141. 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. Lahat na lang ng di mapagkakakitaan, nasa kanya na. These clothes contrasted notably with the Western-style dress worn by women who pursued higher education and those who were visible in professional spaces traditionally occupied by men. 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. 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. 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. Also formally recognized as a National Artists for Theater and Music by Former President Corazon Aquino for Honorita's love . 16 In his first solo, Romansa, Cipriano refers to Angelita as his banal na Birhen (holy Virgin [Mary]). 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. Hence, it is in Atang de la Ramas performance, her creative authorship, that the sarsuwelas are made real. De la Ramas performances transformed the kundiman into a particularly potent musical and cultural symbol of Filipino identity. Soon after, fighting broke out between American and Filipino forces, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Filipino military and civilians. 44 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 419. 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. See Gino Gonzales et. 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. Atang Dela Rama was born on January 11, 1905 in Manila, Philippines. Cultural Center of the Philippines. 11 Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt, eds., Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017), 2. 3 (1993): 32043; and Nicanor Tiongson, A Short History of the Philippine Sarsuwela (1879-2009), Philippine Humanities Review: Sarsuwela 11, no. Her vocal technique and theatricality not only made her especially well-suited for the genre but also created the kundimans distinctive sentimentality and now-standard performative nuances. In 1901, for example, a show advertised as a Novelty in Manila was held at the Teatro Zorrilla that included a variety of acts, ragtime numbers, acrobatics, and minstrelsy performances accompanied by a Good American Orchestra. See Doreen Fernandez, Apolonio B. Chua, and Galileo S. Zafra, Bodabil, in Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, 2nd ed., Nicanor Tiongson (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2018). The iconic image of de la Rama as dalagang bukid also likely inspired the well-known dalagang Filipina subject found in painter Fernando Amorsolos romantic-realist scenes of the idyllic countryside from the 1920s (see Figure 2), with its bandanna-clad young woman who bears some likeness to de la Ramas 1919 portrait. 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. From de la Ramas nuanced characterizations of the virginal and idealized country maiden to the urbanized and flirtatious bailarina or cabaret dancer, her vocal command and onstage presence revolutionized the Tagalog sarsuwela scene in Manila from the 1920s through the prewar years. Yet throughout her life, de la Rama also actively took part in civic organizing, particularly for womens causes. 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. 59 Gonzales et. 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. As Nabasag ang Banga progresses, however, the playfulness she adds to her interpretation slowly complicates the image of the meek and virginal Filipina. 49 Enriquez, Appropriation of Colonial Broadcasting, 10910. 45 El Poder del Kundiman, Philippines Free Press (August 21, 1926). The works of Severino Reyes (18611942), one of the foremost playwrights of the Tagalog sarsuwela, are exemplary. 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.
