Her work highlights the role of the performer as an equally important locus of creative authorship as that ascribed to playwrights and composers. Among the highlights of the production was the song performed by de la Rama, Awit ng Pagkahibang (Delirium Song) in the second act. She was named a national artist of the Philippines in 1987, at the age of 85. 8 Hilary Poriss, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 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. They are. 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. One review in The Tribune expressed shock at how the demure little Queen of Kundiman steps out with some of the most wicked scandal-stuff imaginable. 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. 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]. 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. By 1925, de la Cruz was the highest paid . (n.d.). Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. De la Rama died on July 11, 1991. A sense of this interpretation can be gleaned from her recording of this pivotal song released years following the sarsuwelas premiere.Footnote17 Listening to the recording of Nabasag ang Banga, the power of de la Ramas voice is defined less by its intensity and more by the preciseness of her pitch and clarity of her tone. group 4 theater it is the direction, performance and/or production design the roster ofnational artists (theater) honorata 'atang' dela rama. Atang dela Rama is billed 'The First Star of Philippine Cinema' as she portrayed the title role in Dalagang Bukid in 1919. 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. During the American. 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. This and all other translations are mine. Her direct address to potential audiences reflected a bold and confident voice that knew how and when to play the crowd. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. For more on the history of the womens movement in the Philippines, see Belinda A. Aquino, Filipino Women and Political Engagement, in More Pinay than We Admit (Quezon City: Vibal Foundation, 2010), 1738. 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. 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. These concerns may have been reflecting the dynamics of De la Ramas own marriage to the poet and labor leader Amado Hernandez. 12 Soledad S. Reyes, Representations of Filipino Women in Selected Tagalog Novels (1905-1921), in Feasts and Feats: Festschrift for Doreen G. Fernandez, eds. De la Ramas dual image of the traditional Filipina and the cosmopolitan professional artist strikingly parallels these multiple strategies, and her inclusion in the publication highlights how her rising status as an international celebrity lent particular potency to the idea of feminine progress in the Philippines. 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. 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. She soon became a solo headliner, performing in Manila's largest theaters such as the Savoy, the Palace, and the Lux. She did this twice already and she hopes to continue doing so until all who comes to watch her learns to behave properly.Footnote54. 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. Entertainers and the Making of the Pacific Circuit, 1850-1890, (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2010), 1516. Atang de la Rama Collection: Manuscripts Home: Contents; Personal Papers -- Amado V. Hernanadez . 70 Her postwar film credits include Batong Buhay (1950), Salome (1952), Siga, Siga (1953), Rigiding (1954), Ang Buhay at Pag-ibig ni Dr. Jose Rizal (1955). 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. 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. This treaty ceded the Philippines (along with Puerto Rico and Guam) to the United States in the aftermath of the Spanish-American war. For more information please visit our Permissions help page. 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). She navigated the theatrical stages of sarsuwela and bodabil fluidly, occasionally writing and producing shows herself. 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. 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. Besides here, his angelic voice also came . 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. 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. [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. The Order of National Artists of the Philippines (Filipino: Orden ng mga Pambansang Alagad ng Sining ng Pilipinas) is an order bestowed by the Philippines on Filipinos who have made significant contributions to the development of Philippine art.Members of the Order are known as National Artists.Originally instituted as an Award, it was elevated to the status of an order in 2003. 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. 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. 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. This approach allows me to situate the sarsuwela stage as part of a growing industry that included vaudeville, early cinema, sound recording, and radio. 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. See Gino Gonzales et. 26 Sesang is labeled in the libretto as a dalagang haliparot, a descriptor for a young and licentious woman. 64 Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism, 224. 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. 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). De la Rama on the front cover of The Womans Outlook (July 1926 Issue). Her vocal training in a variety of styles including Italian opera combined well with the idiosyncrasies and theatricality of the Tagalog language. In the local vaudeville circuit, for instance, she performed novelty songs in English and popular excerpts from Italian operas, including duets with the Italian baritone Mario Padovani. 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. 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. 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. On December 7, 1919, the Compaa Ilagan staged the Tagalog sarsuwelaFootnote1 Dalagang Bukid (Country Maiden) for the benefit of its star artist, Honorata Atang de la Rama (19021991), whose public entreaty can be found in the productions playbill: Beloved public: your dalagang bukid gives her benefit Sunday night If you come to see me I will cry with joy and delight; but if you do not honor me with your presence, I will truly mourn, much like how Angelita cries when she is disappointed with her beloved Cipriano. By the late 1910s and early 1920s, sarsuwela repertoire mirrored anxieties around the urbanization of Manila in striking contrast to the idyllic rural countryside. 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. In the program for the 1919 benefit production of Dalagang Bukid, de la Rama is pictured wearing a balintawak dress (see Figure 1). 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). 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. 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. Courtesy of Butterscotch Auction, Newspaper accounts of her tours abroad included descriptions of de la Ramas appearance, revealing the medias tendency to focus on female singers physical looks more than on their musical talent. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un Vals, and Marina. But how can you remain relaxed at home on that night, knowing that Atang celebrates her gala of honor? 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. 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. 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. 55 Karen Henson, Introduction: Of Modern Operatic Mythologies and Technologies, in Technology and the Diva: Sopranos, Opera, and Media from Romanticism to the Digital Age, ed. performing alongside other leading stage performers such as Atang de la Rama. Pontszm: 5/5 ( 34 szavazat) "Nem ktsges, Honorata "Atang" de la Rama, zarzuela s kundiman kirlynje nemcsak neklsvel gazdagtotta a filippn nemzetet, hanem szavaival is: s most, 70 vvel azutn, hogy megnyerte els nekversenyt tves korban Sylvia La Torre tovbbra is a Flp-szigetek Kundiman kirlynjeknt uralkodik. 13 The womens movement in the Philippines further gained momentum in 1921 with the establishment of the National Federation of Womens Clubs that mobilized for suffrage. Si Ka Amado, labor leader, konsehal, makata, manunulat. Read full biography. 6 See, for example, Patricia Marion Lopez, Imaging Women in the Zarzuela, Philippine Humanities Review: Sarsuwela 11, no. 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. 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. 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. The patriotic anthem Bayan Ko (My Country), perhaps the most famous and enduring kundiman in Philippine music history, was also popularized by de la Rama.Footnote42 Yet standard accounts ignore the critical role she played, instead tracing the development of the kundiman from its origins in a handful of songs created during the Revolutionary period at the turn of the twentieth century to the art songs of the conservatory composers. 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. To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below. Her parents came from Negros Occidental. 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. Also, Renato Lucas, A Preliminary Annotation of Selected Discography by Filipino Artists, 19131946, Journal of the Arts, Culture, and the Humanities 3, no. 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). One place to begin exploring the case for de la Ramas creative authorship is the characterizations of women that proliferated in Philippine literature and theater in the 1910s, leading up to de la Ramas Dalagang Bukid. 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. 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). Her performances on the sarsuwela stage refashioned stereotypical female characters. 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. 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. 45 El Poder del Kundiman, Philippines Free Press (August 21, 1926). Makalawa na niyang ginawa ito at umaasa siyang magpatuloy habang ang mga nanonood sa dulaan ay hindi natututong magpakatino.. 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). A democratic republic is one which guarantees the freedom to create, with no special instruction attached. Contemporary accounts portray de la Rama as a commanding authority 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. 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. 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. 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. She is hailed as the Queen of Kundiman in 1979 at the tender age of 79. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un . Original text: Tumutulong si Atang de la Rama upang ang mga may pangit na asal na nanonood sa mga dulaan ay matutong gumalang sa arte. Tamang sagot sa tanong: MUSIC please help me() - studystoph.com Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? 33 See also Matthew Wittman, Empire of Culture: U.S. 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).