27 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 11011. 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. Si Ka Amado, labor leader, konsehal, makata, manunulat. See Helen F. Samson-Lauterwald, Music in the Sarsuwelas of Severino Reyes (Lola Basyang) (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2016). She was also at the forefront of introducing Filipino culture to foreign audiences. But even as de la Rama was widely known as the Queen of the Kundiman, she also performed songs outside of the kundiman and Tagalog repertory and occasionally appeared in risqu performances. Also, Renato Lucas, A Preliminary Annotation of Selected Discography by Filipino Artists, 19131946, Journal of the Arts, Culture, and the Humanities 3, no. 11 Andrew N. Weintraub and Bart Barendregt, eds., Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2017), 2. De la Cruz also appeared in films and received a FAMAS Best Supporting Actress Award in 1953. 34 Doreen Fernandez, Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1996), 88. 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. Wilfredo Ma. Perhaps it is only theater royalty who could get away with schooling their public. 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!. 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. During the latter part of her life she lived in Gagalangin, Tondo, birthplace of her husband, Amado V. Hernandez, himself a National Artist, whom she married in 1932. 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. Read full biography. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un . 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. Academics echoed similar critiques. Her vocal training in a variety of styles including Italian opera combined well with the idiosyncrasies and theatricality of the Tagalog language. As of this writing, there are 7 National Artist for Theater awardees. 67 Jun Cruz Reyes, Ka Amado (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2012), 15354, 25657. 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. At this same time, Manilas moralists and staunch nationalists accused the bodabil stage of peddling in vulgarity and criticized its performance of American jazz. 2021 Felice P Sta Maria 2019 Danny E Dalena 2018 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. 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. 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 Dalagang Bukid, de la Rama played the part of Angelita, a young girl working as a flower vendor who embodied the virtuous Filipina amidst the backdrop of Manilas bustling nightlife. She was widowed in 1970 In 1970, at the age of 68, her husband, Amado V. Hernandez, passed away. Figure 2. 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. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. 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). 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). 71 De la Rama was awarded the National Artist Award for theater and music. This essay focuses on the career of Honorata Atang de la Rama on the popular sarsuwela and vaudeville stages during the period of American colonization in the Philippines. 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). 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. 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. 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. Original text: Ay naku! [2], Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. 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. 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. It came to represent idealized images of Filipina femininity found in the sarsuwelas.Footnote56 This photo invites further reading on how de la Ramas own image carries a powerful influence separate from that created for her by the sarsuwelas authors. 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. During the American. 7 Carolyn Abbate, Opera; or, the Envoicing of Women, in Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? 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. Often, sarsuwelas plots express anxiety over the increasing presence of women in the public sphere, especially in their capacity as workers and professionals in industrializing Manila, and over the emerging womens movement in the early 1910s.Footnote13. Sesangs character as the former cabaret dancer embodies the modern, cosmopolitan woman of the 1920s, while scenes and costume details situate her worldly and morally questionable personality.Footnote28. 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. Bernardino Buenaventura of Samahang Gabriel (Company Gabriel) rewrote it for the stage with music by Jose Z. Rivera. 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. Original text is in English. 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. Ruth A. Solie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 22558. For other contemporary academic critiques to jazz, see Keppy, Tales of Southeast Asias Jazz Age, 8283. 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. 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. Confident in her languid disregard for the composers melody, she renders a playful, flirtatious version of the song. 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. 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. 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. A democratic republic is one which guarantees the freedom to create, with no special instruction attached. 26 Sesang is labeled in the libretto as a dalagang haliparot, a descriptor for a young and licentious woman. 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. 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. Louise Edwards and Mina Roces (London; New York, NY: Taylor and Francis, 2004), 2458. In the recording, the song is introduced with a short comedic dialogue in which de la Rama plays the role of a vendor who sells rice cakes to the tenor Vicente Ocampo, who then tries to squirm out of paying for the bibingka he had just tasted. 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. In many of her publicity photos, she wears the Filipino dress typically worn by middle- and upper-class women, the traje de mestiza (see Figure 3). 39 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. Vaudevilles early beginnings in the Philippines can be traced to a variety of theatrical entertainment by visiting American and European troupes in Manila in the late nineteenth century. In the final repetition of the songs chorus, de la Rama plays out affective vocal nuances with the pronounced slowness of her delivery.