atang dela rama awards

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. 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 Rama dancing to the foxtrot points to the popularity of the dance genre in the Philippines around the same time as the sarsuwelas premiere. 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. 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. 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. 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. See Motoe Terami-Wada, Philippine Stage Performances During the Japanese Occupation, Philippine Studies 29, no. 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. 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. 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. The characteristic bitin or prolonged delivery of cadential phrase endings mentioned earlier, for example, echo vocal techniques heard in de la Ramas own recordings. 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. 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. 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. 8 Hilary Poriss, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 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. 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. [4] She has also been a theatrical producer, writer and talent manager. 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. (Manila: Paredes, 1923). 58 Roces, Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct, 3233. 30 Maria Luisa was originally written by Remigio Mat Castro as a serialized short story for Liwayway magazine. 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. Just as the womens movement was gaining ground in the Philippines, de la Rama harnessed the power of the visual, constructing her celebrity as much from her image as a professional and cosmopolitan artist as from her iconic status as the dalagang bukid.. 46 Ibid. 3 (1993): 32043, at 331. Si Ka Amado, labor leader, konsehal, makata, manunulat. The National Artists of the Philippines. 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. Atang de la Rama. 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. 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). 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. Placing the performer and her creative labor front and center, I aim to contribute to the larger conversation surrounding the female voice as authorial and the performance as text. 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. We use cookies to improve your website experience. 64 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 224. 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. De la Ramas performances transformed the kundiman into a particularly potent musical and cultural symbol of Filipino identity. 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. 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. 2 (2010): 14986. 17 The recording I used for this analysis is a compact disc compilation entitled Kamuning: Re-mastered (Quezon City: Yesteryears Music Gallery, 2000). 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. Si Adan sa Paraiso (Man!!! 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). Here, she is deliberate in her pauses and vocal slidescommonly referred to in Filipino music parlance as bitin and hagodand leaves the listener with a sense of vertiginous hanging just before the final cadence. 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. 50 Nick Deocampo, Film: American Influences on Philippine Cinema (Mandaluyong, Philippines: Anvil, 2017), 519. National Commission for Culture and the Arts. 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. Ruth A. Solie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 22558. Registered in England & Wales No. As the above quote suggests, her ability to connect with her audience went beyond her characterization of the bashful country maiden, and had, in a short span of time, allowed for a playful familiarity with her growing fan base. Fernando Amorsolos Campesina (Peasant, 1927). See also Fernandez, Palabas, 8889. 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. performing alongside other leading stage performers such as Atang de la Rama. 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. 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. Atang Dela Rama was born on 11 January 1905 in Manila, Philippines. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. 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. 1/2 (1997): 12850, at 141. Original text: Ay naku! theather. 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. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below. al., Fashionable Filipinas, 141. The striking cabaret scenes portray glimpses of the leisurely life of young, middle-class men and of bailarinas. Continue your trip to show other nations and whites our capacity for all kinds of pursuits and that we also have artists that we can be proud of!Footnote46 Such adulation underlines de la Ramas inextricable connection to the song form and her role in crafting kundimans canonic place in Philippine music. This and all other translations are mine. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. These concerns may have been reflecting the dynamics of De la Ramas own marriage to the poet and labor leader Amado Hernandez. Theater scholars have noted that de la Rama danced while singing Nabasag ang Banga during some performances.Footnote21 Her bakya (wooden clog slippers) tapping to the foxtrot rhythm poses a striking contrast to the image of the country maiden, projecting an ambivalent and playful reflection on U.S. American cultural influences. 1 (1981): 7788, at 83. 54 Ignacio Manlapaz, Philippines Herald (April 1934). See Doreen Fernandez, Zarzuela to Sarswela: Indigenization and Transformation, Philippine Studies 41, no. The manuscript piano-vocal score and libretto of Dalagang Bukid is located in the Manlapaz Collection of the Pardo de Tavera Library and Special Collections at the Ateneo de Manila University (PL5548.3.I54 D3). Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? 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. At the end of this rendition, one is left with the distinct impression that she is mischievously waiting to tip over and break the jar herself.Footnote18. She was widowed in 1970 In 1970, at the age of 68, her husband, Amado V. Hernandez, passed away. 38 Santiago, The Development of Music in the Philippine Islands, 516. : Defining The Filipino Woman in Colonial Philippines, in Womens Suffrage in Asia: Gender, Nationalism and Democracy, eds. Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. 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. 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). 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. 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. Ang Kiri is an example of a subset of sarsuwelas from this period that contrasted urban cosmopolitan Manila with the idyllic countryside. 34 Doreen Fernandez, Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1996), 88. Her parents came from Negros Occidental. 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). 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. Doreen Fernandez and Jonathan Chua (Manila: Office of Research and Publications, Loyola Schools, Ateneo de Manila University, 2000), 20721, at 212. She was named a national artist of the Philippines in 1987, at the age of 85. 23 Nicanor Tiongson, Atang de la Rama: Unat Huling Bituin, Liwayway (March 10, 1980). Courtesy of Adlai Lara. 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). 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. The second in the list is Punyal ni Rosa with 366 performances. At age fifteen, de la Rama had her first opportunity to complicate the figure of the demure Filipina maiden when she made her debut in Dalagang Bukid in 1917. 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. [3], During the American occupation of the Philippines, Atang de la Rama fought for the dominance of the kundiman, an important Philippine folk song, and the sarsuela, which is a musical play that focused on contemporary Filipino issues such as usury, cockfighting, and colonial mentality. Atang dela Rama is billed 'The First Star of Philippine Cinema' as she portrayed the title role in Dalagang Bukid in 1919. Guerrero. 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. 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. Sawyer also campaigned for womens suffrage during this period and, as dance and theater historian Julie Malnig argues, linked the rhetoric of physical and psychological progress to dance and to womens new-found freedoms. See Julie Malnig, Two-Stepping to Glory: Social Dance and the Rhetoric of Social Mobility, Etnofoor 10, no. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. Honorata "Atang" Marquez de la Rama-Hernandez. Named National Artist in 1987, Atang de la Rama was a star of vaudeville in the 30s, or 'bodabil' in these parts. 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. Atang Dela Rama Angelita Mar I. Esmeralda Director Jose Nepomuceno Writers Leon Ignacio (story) Hermogenes Ilagan (story) All cast & crew Production, box office & more at IMDbPro Storyline Edit Did you know Trivia Considered as the first Filipino movie made. 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. A democratic republic is one which guarantees the freedom to create, with no special instruction attached. The dalagang Filipina figured prominently in Amorsolos works throughout his career and had become, as historian Mina Roces argues, the romanticized image of the Filipino woman that most Filipino men in the 1920s wanted to maintain, especially at the time when the womens suffrage movement was gaining traction in the Philippines.Footnote58 Photographs from the 1920s and 1930s display de la Ramas penchant for combining traditional and modern fashion trends, actively contradicting the nostalgic and romanticized image of the Filipina. 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. 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. De la Cruz also appeared in films and received a FAMAS Best Supporting Actress Award in 1953. These accounts skip over the existence of the kundiman in the popular entertainment stages like bodabil, thus helping to eliminate de la Ramas influence from the historical record. 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). Figure 4. 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. 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. p. 97-109. Anvil Publishing.2004. Film historian Nick Deocampo remarks how her debut on the sarsuwela stage as dalagang bukid convinced the films director, Jose Nepomuceno, to cast her. 2. For other contemporary academic critiques to jazz, see Keppy, Tales of Southeast Asias Jazz Age, 8283. Karen Henson (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1123, at 20. 3 Written histories of Spanish zarzuela in the Philippines often start with an account of the staging of Francisco Barbieris Jugar con Fuego, sometime between 1878 and 1879 by Dario Cspedes, who managed a zarzuela company in Spain prior to his arrival in Manila. Pag may welga, magpapakuha yan ng saku-sakong bigas at lata ng biskuwit kayat palaging laslas ang bulsa ni Atang de la Rama. Emphasis in the original article. Though not the mythical glass-breaking sopranos voice, hers retains a youthful character similar to that of a soubrette, with its bright tone and fast vibrato which helps reinforce the image of the innocent young maiden. He was everything that didnt make money. [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. [3] 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. That was why Atang de la Ramas pocket was always empty [Emphasis in the original].Footnote68. 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. Nicanor G. Tiongson. I am especially indebted to Pamela Potter, Christi-Anne Castro, Susan Cook, Anne Shreffler, Elaine Fitz Gibbon, Elisabeth Reisinger, David Miller, and Frederick Schenker. This was a practice employed by composers at the turn of the twentieth century who liberally used dance forms such as the waltz, habanera, tango, mazurka, and polka. De la Rama on the front cover of The Womans Outlook (July 1926 Issue). 56 Gino Gonzales, Mark Lewis Higgins, Sandra B. Castro, Ramon N. Villegas, and Jo Ann Bitagcol, Fashionable Filipinas: An Evolution of the Philippine National Dress in Photographs, 18601960 (Makati City, Philippines: Slims Legacy Project, 2015), 280. Nicanor Tiongson (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2018). 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). 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. To learn about our use of cookies and how you can manage your cookie settings, please see our Cookie Policy. (2002). In a tennis court scene showing the new types of social spaces that women could inhabit, Sesang appears wearing sports attire as she hangs out with her suitors. Photographs of de la Rama aided her popularity locally and abroad and served as additional sites for her performance of Filipina femininity. By the late 1910s and early 1920s, sarsuwela repertoire mirrored anxieties around the urbanization of Manila in striking contrast to the idyllic rural countryside.

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