Clutario notes how the Tagalog word kiri had become synonymous with the flapper, one of the dominant symbols of Filipina modernity in the late 1920s.Footnote27 This particular strain of Filipina modernity corresponds to the ways in which new fashion and beauty regimens became strongly tied to perceptions and subsequent depictions of the babae ngayon (woman of today), sexually liberated in stark contrast to the ideal Filipina. In the program for the 1919 benefit production of Dalagang Bukid, de la Rama is pictured wearing a balintawak dress (see Figure 1). . 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 . 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. Adam in Paradise) that is set on an island full of women, all of whom pursued a stranded and hapless man with a mix of enticing dialogs, songs, and comedic repartees.Footnote53 This is a side of de la Ramas stage career that is not well known, one that stands in striking contrast to her reputation as the demure country maiden. She died six months after her birthday Rama passed away on July 11, 1991, which was exactly six months after her 89th birthday. Atang Dela Rama was born on January 11, 1905 in Manila, Philippines. Remembering The Philippines Biggest Star: Atang De La Rama 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. Menu. He was everything that didnt make money. 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. Nicanor G. Tiongson. 26 Sesang is labeled in the libretto as a dalagang haliparot, a descriptor for a young and licentious woman. Angelitas parents plan to marry her off to the much older and wealthy loan shark Don Silvestre. Their repartee turns into de la Rama singing about the method of cooking the rice cake with fire below and on top and how her bibingka is much sought after for its extra stickiness and its full toppings of egg and cheese. Atang dela Rama is billed 'The First Star of Philippine Cinema' as she portrayed the title role in Dalagang Bukid in 1919. 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. Figure 4. In the April 26, 1930 issue of the Tagalog daily Taliba, for example, Franco Vera Reyes wrote, I hope the many artists who starred in Maria Luisa will not be offended by this but they owe a huge part of the zarzuelas success to the muse of the Tagalog drama [Mutya ng Dulaang Tagalog]. Atang de la Rama Collection: Manuscripts Home: Contents; Personal Papers -- Amado V. Hernanadez . Makalawa na niyang ginawa ito at umaasa siyang magpatuloy habang ang mga nanonood sa dulaan ay hindi natututong magpakatino.. 73 De la Rama penned several sarsuwela scripts including Dalagang Silanganan (Maid of the East), Diwata ng Ipugaw (Fairy of Ifugao), and Anak ni Eba (Daughter of Eve). She was an actress, known for Dalagang bukid (1919), Mahiwagang binibini: Ang kiri (1939) and Oriental Blood (1930). 67 Jun Cruz Reyes, Ka Amado (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2012), 15354, 25657. Atang de la Rama - geni family tree Her parents came from Negros Occidental. Other photos of de la Rama from the 1930s onward show her holding the banga and wearing later versions of the balintawak that has a more straight-lined silhouette with matching fabric for the top and bottom parts of the dress. On January 11, 1902, Honorata "Atang" de la Rama, National Artist for theater and music, was born in Pandacan, Manila. 22 The article was derived from a booklet published by Columbia Gramophone Company with a letter written by Sawyer, dated November 23, 1914. 65 Roces, Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct, 37. Atang believed that art should be for everyone; not only did she perform in major Manila theaters such as the Teatro Libertad and the Teatro Zorilla, but also in cockpits and open plazas in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. Atang de la Rama - Wikiwand Through sarsuwela librettos and scores, rare sound recordings, reviews, publicity photos, and de la Ramas writings, I amplify her musical and metaphorical voice to address the critical role of women in the production of sarsuwelas and popular culture in the Philippines. Her direct address to potential audiences reflected a bold and confident voice that knew how and when to play the crowd. She died on July 11, 1991 in the Philippines. Atang dela Rama: 'The First Star of Philippine Cinema' - Philstar.com 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. 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. Hence, it is in Atang de la Ramas performance, her creative authorship, that the sarsuwelas are made real. Contemporary accounts portray de la Rama as a commanding authority on the theatrical stage. I would also like to thank Journal of Musicological Research editor Hilary Poriss and the journals anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback. 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. (Manila: Paredes, 1923). Atang Dela Rama is a national artist for theater and music queen of kundiman. 8 Hilary Poriss, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 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. 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. 30 Maria Luisa was originally written by Remigio Mat Castro as a serialized short story for Liwayway magazine. As of this writing, there are 7 National Artist for Theater awardees. See Lacnico-Buenaventura, The Theater in Manila, 88. 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. The perception that suffragists also had strong support from American colonial officials (such as Governor General Francis Burton Harrison) added to the political tensions. Among the highlights of the production was the song performed by de la Rama, Awit ng Pagkahibang (Delirium Song) in the second act. Atang de la Rama. Trivia (7) As Queen of Zarzuela, she starred in more than 50 zarzuelas. De la Ramas voice resonates through the writers own recollection as it vividly creates the experience of the sarsuwela for its audience. 60 The term terno emerged in the late 1900s and originally referred to the use of a single type of material (like the sinamay or abac fabric) for the camisa, pauelo, and saya of the dress, creating a more uniform and matching look. While de la Ramas popularity as the dalagang bukid of the theatrical stage may have helped construct her good girl image, her performances outside of sarsuwela point to the broader network of popular entertainment in which she toyed with traditional expectations of Filipina femininity. De la Ramas personal writings hint that she engaged directly in this balancing act between private and public life. 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. 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). See Doreen Fernandez, Zarzuela to Sarswela: Indigenization and Transformation, Philippine Studies 41, no. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 45 El Poder del Kundiman, Philippines Free Press (August 21, 1926). Within this tension between the urban and the rural, representations of women often invoked expectations of Filipina femininity that conveyed a nostalgia for the pastoral lifestyle, a reaction to perceived encroachments of the foreign and the modern onto traditional Filipino values. 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. This created what Roces considers a dilemma in which Filipina suffragists supported the nationalist project while lobbying for a (male-dominated) government that would only serve to disenfranchise them. Theather | PDF | Philippines | Theatre - Scribd 50 Nick Deocampo, Film: American Influences on Philippine Cinema (Mandaluyong, Philippines: Anvil, 2017), 519. People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. About: Atang de la Rama - DBpedia De la Rama.Footnote2. 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. De la Rama was instrumental in the popularization of the Tagalog song repertory across these different entertainment platforms; she activated voice and image to play a central role in creating a Filipina femininity in the 1920s that challenged expectations of womens work as solely devoted to home and family life. I regret I am not seen often enough attending cultural events. Of the 73 honorees since the awards reception in 1972, de la Rama is among only 11 women.Footnote71 Even in these later decades of her life, de la Rama presented herself in her trademark terno, a picture of grace with a little bit of spunk, not unlike her debut character half a century ago. 6 See, for example, Patricia Marion Lopez, Imaging Women in the Zarzuela, Philippine Humanities Review: Sarsuwela 11, no. The intricate folding of the panuelo is in itself an art, and it has been a constant source of wonder among foreigners. Facebook 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". theather. De la Rama on the front cover of The Womans Outlook (July 1926 Issue). Honorata de la Rama Hernandez, popularly known as Atang de la Rama, a singer and performer is the first star of the Philippine Cinema. Atang de La Rama | PDF | Philippines - Scribd 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 .
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