Creative Authorship and the Filipina Diva Atang de la Rama

Abstract

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. Through sound recordings, reviews, photos, and her own writings, I amplify de la Rama’s musical and metaphorical voice to address the important role of women in Philippine music and popular culture. Her work highlights the role of the performer as an equally important locus of creative authorship as that ascribed to playwrights and composers. De la Rama’s 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. Such self-fashioning carried political significance, especially during the resurgence of nationalism and in the emerging women’s movement during the 1920s and 1930s in the Philippines.