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Although this pairing was at times fraught with rumors of domestic quarrels, de la Rama and Hernandez remained together, even after Hernandez was imprisoned for six years in the 1950s on charges of rebellion and associations with the communist movement.Footnote67 In one of her more candid postwar interviews, de la Rama spoke of how she supported the social causes that her husband championed: Oh, Ka Amado was a labor leader, councilor, poet, writer. This treaty ceded the Philippines (along with Puerto Rico and Guam) to the United States in the aftermath of the Spanish-American war. Contemporary accounts portray de la Rama as a commanding authority on the theatrical stage. 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. She also made an effort to bring the kundiman and sarsuela to the indigenous peoples of the Philippine such as the Igorots, the Aetas, and the Mangyans. 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. The sartorial imagery of the dalagang bukid became a standard for young women who had their portraits taken in the 1920s and 1930s, wearing balintawak with pastoral backgrounds and using props such as a banga or clay jug and baskets of flowers or produce. Breaking down stereotypes: The divas voice, On the multiple stages of popular entertainment, Creating Filipina nationalism: The divas image, https://doi.org/10.1080/01411896.2021.1992595, https://www.flickr.com/photos/9307819@N05/2544474500/in/photostream/, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/clippings/NLPADB00811486/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/NL02/NLPADGD40850fd/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00311420/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00111373/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/NLPADMNB00111378/datejpg1.htm, http://nlpdl.nlp.gov.ph/AD01/manuscripts/home.htm, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health. These concerns may have been reflecting the dynamics of De la Ramas own marriage to the poet and labor leader Amado Hernandez. 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. 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). 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. 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. De la Ramas celebrity status also carried through the visual aspects of her public persona on and off stage, cultivating an image that was both modern and traditional, Filipino and cosmopolitan. performing alongside other leading stage performers such as Atang de la Rama. Ang Kiri is an example of a subset of sarsuwelas from this period that contrasted urban cosmopolitan Manila with the idyllic countryside. 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. 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. 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. She died six months after her birthday Rama passed away on July 11, 1991, which was exactly six months after her 89th birthday. 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. As of this writing, there are 7 National Artist for Theater awardees. Bernardino Buenaventura of Samahang Gabriel (Company Gabriel) rewrote it for the stage with music by Jose Z. Rivera. 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). This approach allows me to situate the sarsuwela stage as part of a growing industry that included vaudeville, early cinema, sound recording, and radio. (2002). Among the highlights of the production was the song performed by de la Rama, Awit ng Pagkahibang (Delirium Song) in the second act. This position ironically came from the male politicians advocating for independence. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? 9 See Denise Cruz, Transpacific Femininities: The Making of the Modern Filipina (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012); Genevieve A. Clutario, The Appearance of Filipina Nationalism: Body, Nation, Empire (PhD dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014); Mina Roces, Is the Suffragist an American Colonial Construct? These recordings showcase de la Ramas vocal prowess and range. 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. 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. Angelita and Cipriano are the main protagonists in the sarsuwela. 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. De la Ramas voice resonates through the writers own recollection as it vividly creates the experience of the sarsuwela for its audience. 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. While a few scholars have previously underlined the sexual innuendo in Nabasag ang Banga, the reading of the broken jug as a metaphor for lost virginity had a somewhat contested origin.Footnote19 Indeed, the reception of the songs sexual themes in de la Ramas performance may have prompted Tagalog writer Remigio Mat Castro to remark in 1923 that the playwright Ilagan did not intend any metaphorical messages for the original song but instead meant for it to be taken literally.Footnote20 In his compilation of short stories, Nabasag ang Banga?, Castro borrows the popular song title and, in his introduction, insists that nabasag ang banga acquired its metaphorical meaning outside of the context of the sarsuwela. 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). 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.. Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1902. 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. 41 See Antonio C. Hila, Ramon P. Santos, and Arwin Q. Tan, Kundiman, in Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, 2nd ed., ed. 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. 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. When there was a strike, he would order sacks of rice and cans of biscuits and charge them to me. and National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Confident in her languid disregard for the composers melody, she renders a playful, flirtatious version of the song. 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. 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. 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 . 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. Some of the notable composers of this early sarsuwela repertoire were Jos Estella, Juan de Sahagun Hernandez, and Fulgencio Tolentino. 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. Deflecting the advances of this suitor, Angelita elopes with her childhood sweetheart, the law student Cipriano. 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. By the late 1920s, the traje de mestiza would evolve into the terno, a garment with a more streamlined design and prominent butterfly sleeves.Footnote60 The terno became the symbolic national dress worn by women in public and in various civic organizations. 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. Wherever I go, in the course of my professional tours and engagements, I always wear my saya long and the sleeves of my camisa as ample as they should be like the gauzy wings of a butterfly, and it has never failed to elicit sighs of admiration among women of other countries I have visited. See Tiongson, Atang de la Rama, 31. . 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. By the age of 7, she was already starring in Spanish zarzuelas such as Mascota, Sueo de un . The centennial of local movies is celebrated this year, 2019.. In the dramas final act, the playwright imagines a Philippines in a state of regression under a female-led government. I will never permit myself to be caught dead in a knee-length skirt, without the customary panuelo, and without camisa sleeves that look like the wings of a newly hatched grasshopper.Footnote63. Original text: Atang, sta es la primera vez desde hace no s cuanto tiempo que oigo un kundiman nuestro. Cultural Center of the Philippines. Beyond the sarsuwela stage, de la Ramas work in vaudeville, film, and radio complicate perceptions of a Filipino culture wholly subject to the cultural logics of American colonialism. Karen Henson (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 1123, at 20. 44 Schenker, Empire of Syncopation, 419. 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.