Félix Martínez y Lorenzo painted this village dance in Manila in 1886. The work is signed “Felix Martinez” in red at the lower left. Auction catalogues also record an inscription dating it to Manila in 1886.

The composition is horizontal. Two barefoot dancers occupy the center and left side of the foreground. A group of musicians and spectators sits or stands under a thatched roof at the right. More thatched houses appear in the background.

The female dancer wears a loose white blouse with wide sleeves. A striped cloth is draped over her shoulder. Her black overskirt covers most of a red patterned skirt. She raises her right arm with the elbow bent and the wrist turned downward. Her feet are positioned close together as she faces her partner.

The male dancer wears a broad straw hat, a loose striped shirt and rolled trousers. His clothes show tears and patches. His right arm is raised toward the brim of his hat, while his left arm hangs beside his body. His legs cross as he steps forward. The two dancers face each other without touching.

An older man seated at the right plays a guitar. He wears a blue shirt, white trousers and a conical hat. Behind him are a woman in a red blouse and a man holding a rooster. A younger figure crouches in the lower-right corner with a long stick resting on the ground.

The dancers stand in direct light, while the guitarist and spectators remain beneath the shade of the roof. The principal colors are brown, ochre and green. Red appears in the woman’s skirt, the rooster and the artist’s signature.

The painting is closely related to Martínez’s work depicting Philippine social types. Among his surviving watercolors are an Indio guitarrista and an Indio con el gallo. The oil painting places comparable figures together within a village dance.

The title of the painting

The original title of the canvas has not been established.

When the work was auctioned at Bukowskis in Stockholm on June 12, 2025, it was catalogued in English as Village Scene, The Philippines. Its Swedish title, Dans i byn, Filippinerna, means “Dance in the Village, the Philippines.” It had been acquired from Göteborgs Auktionsverk in the late 1980s and remained in a Swedish private collection. The painting sold for SEK 3.7 million before fees. Bukowskis catalogue entry

The same canvas was offered at Salcedo Auctions in Manila on November 29, 2025, under the title La Jota Manileña. It sold for PHP 34 million before fees and PHP 39.712 million including the buyer’s premium. Report on the Salcedo sale

Neither auction catalogue records an inscribed title. The official catalogue of the 1887 Exposición General de las Islas Filipinas in Madrid lists several works by Martínez, but none is called La Jota Manileña. The painting should therefore be identified as Village Scene, later titled La Jota Manileña, unless an earlier document establishes its original title.

The dance depicted in the painting has features associated with the jota. These include a facing couple, raised arms and guitar accompaniment. The dancers do not hold visible castanets or bamboo clickers, however. It is therefore possible to identify the dance as a jota, but the specific name Jota Manileña remains unconfirmed.

Félix Martínez y Lorenzo

Félix Martínez y Lorenzo was born in Santa Cruz, Manila, in 1859. The most recent biographical research places his death around 1916. He studied at the University of Santo Tomas, where he received instruction in drawing from the Dominican Joaquín Sabater.

Martínez worked as a painter and illustrator. He supplied dozens of botanical designs for the third edition of Manuel Blanco’s Flora de Filipinas, published between 1877 and 1883. He later became one of the principal illustrators of La Ilustración Filipina.

He participated in the 1887 Philippine Exposition in Madrid. His entries included watercolors of Philippine social types and two oil paintings titled La naturaleza and El deber cumplido. Both oils are now in the collection of the Museo Nacional del Prado. Blas Sierra de la Calle, “Félix Martínez y Lorenzo en La Ilustración Filipina”

Martínez joined the Escuela Práctica Profesional de Artes y Oficios de Manila in 1891 as an assistant in the visual arts. He became professor of modelling and casting around 1895 and remained at the school until the end of Spanish rule.

The jota in Spain

The jota is a Spanish form of music and dance documented under that name from the eighteenth century. It became especially associated with Aragón, although regional jotas developed throughout Spain.

The dance is usually performed by couples. Its music commonly uses triple meter, generally written in 3/4 or organized through combinations of 3/4 and 6/8. Dancers frequently raise their arms and perform small jumps or turns. Castanets are common in staged versions but are not required in every social performance.

The accompaniment varies by region. Guitars and bandurrias are widely used. Some areas use flutes, drums, violins or bagpipes. The Spanish Ministry of Culture recognizes the jota as one of the most widely distributed forms of traditional music and dance in Spain. Spanish Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage

During the nineteenth century, the jota appeared in private social gatherings and public festivals. It also entered the theater and the zarzuela. Composers produced instrumental jotas for guitar, piano and orchestra. Jotas could refer to courtship, regional identity or political events.

Spanish dances in the Philippines

European dances circulated in the Philippines through colonial schools and urban theaters. They were also performed at religious festivities, municipal celebrations and private gatherings.

In 1846, Jean-Baptiste Mallat reported that Filipinos danced the fandango, zapateado and cachucha. He also mentioned Mexican jarabes. Mallat observed that Filipino dancers played castanets accurately and executed rapid turns.

The jota became popular during the late Spanish colonial period. According to Lucrecia Reyes-Urtula, Prosperidad Arandez and Nicanor Tiongson, it was initially performed by Spaniards at social gatherings. Filipinos who participated learned the dance and introduced it to other communities. The form spread from affluent urban settings into provincial and rural areas. “The Spanish Colonial Tradition in Philippine Dance”

Philippine versions retained the paired formation and triple meter of Spanish jotas. Local performers modified the steps and instrumentation. Elongated bamboo clickers were used in place of Spanish castanets. Accompaniment was commonly provided by string instruments and later by the Philippine rondalla.

Regional versions were named after their places of performance. These include the Jota Moncadeña of Tarlac and the Jota Caviteña. Other documented examples come from Cagayan, Bicol and Samar. There are also versions associated with Iloilo, Quezon and Palawan.

These dances did not all use the same choreography. Some alternated fast and slow sections. Others incorporated local hand movements or waltz steps. Costumes also varied by region and period.

The painting and the nineteenth-century jota

Martínez dated the painting in 1886. It therefore records a paired village dance in the Philippines before the end of Spanish colonial rule.

The rural setting corresponds with historical accounts stating that the jota spread beyond Spanish and affluent Filipino social gatherings. The painting shows a single guitarist rather than the larger rondalla used in later stage performances. It also shows dancers in ordinary clothing rather than coordinated theatrical costumes.

No castanets appear in the dancers’ hands. Spanish sources note that castanets were common in staged jotas but were not always used when the dance was performed informally. Their absence does not exclude the possibility that Martínez depicted a jota.

Jotas in Manila in 1898

Manila newspapers provide evidence that several kinds of jota were performed publicly in the city by the end of the Spanish period.

From January 30 to February 2, 1898, the Ayuntamiento organized festivities at Bagumbayan to celebrate what the colonial government described as the pacification of the archipelago. The program included open-air theater and musical performances.

Among the dances were a Jota Aragonesa and a Jota Sevillana. Other parts of the program included zarzuela excerpts and moro-moro. Military and municipal bands supplied music during the festivities. These programs are reproduced in William Summers’s study of Spanish military bands in Manila. William Summers, “Manila’s Spanish Military Regimental Bands at the End of the Nineteenth Century”

The Ramon Obusan Folkloric Foundation gives a different account of the specific Jota de Manila. According to the Foundation, the dance was first performed during the celebration of Philippine independence on June 12, 1898. Its description states that soldiers and civilians danced to brass-band music and used elongated bamboo castanets. Ramon Obusan Folkloric Foundation

No contemporary document confirming this precise origin has yet been identified. The Foundation’s account records the performance history associated with its version of the dance. The 1886 painting cannot confirm or disprove the date because its original title is unknown.

The jota and flamenco

The jota is not a form of flamenco. The two traditions developed in different regions of Spain. Flamenco is associated principally with Andalusia and with the contributions of Gitano performers. UNESCO describes it as an art combining vocal music with dance and instrumental accompaniment. UNESCO, “Flamenco”

The jota was more widely distributed across Spain and became particularly associated with Aragón and Castile. Nevertheless, the jota and flamenco belonged to overlapping performance cultures during the nineteenth century.

Spanish theaters presented jotas alongside fandangos, boleros and zapateados. The Andalusian escuela bolera used castanets and detailed footwork. During the nineteenth century, bolero dancers and Gitano performers exchanged elements of technique. This interaction contributed to the development of flamenco dance. Instituto Andaluz del Flamenco, “The Bolera School of Dance”

Musicologist Guillermo Castro Buendía has identified jota rhythms and melodic forms in some flamenco repertories. These include the cantiñas group, especially the alegrías, as well as certain jaleos. The shared rhythmic feature is often an alternation between 3/4 and 6/8. Guillermo Castro Buendía, “La jota: recorrido musical y proyección en el flamenco”

Sevillanas are Andalusian social dances frequently presented in flamenco programs. They are related to flamenco performance practice but remain a separate dance genre. The Jota Sevillana listed in the 1898 Manila program indicates that a jota with a Sevillian identification was already being performed in the city.

Modern descriptions of the Jota de Manila sometimes state that its arm movements were influenced by sevillanas or flamenco. This description applies most clearly to choreographed twentieth-century versions. It does not establish that Martínez’s dancers were performing flamenco.

Paulo Alcazaren’s 2022 article “Flamenco and Coconut Dancing” provides evidence of organized flamenco performance in Manila during the late 1950s. His source was an illustrated magazine feature published in 1959. The original periodical is not identified in his article, but several performers and parts of the program are named. Paulo Alcazaren, “Flamenco and Coconut Dancing”

The photographs show René Nieto dancing with Milagros Paredes-Gonzalez. One caption identifies their dance as a farruca from Manuel de Falla’s ballet El sombrero de tres picos. Other images show the sisters María del Puy and María Cristina Olondriz wearing the regional costume of Aragón. Mariles Garcia, Tessie Da Silva and Carmen Perez appear in another photograph under the description Gitanes Sevillanas.

The feature recorded more than one category of Spanish dance. The Aragonese costumes belonged to the regional culture most closely associated with the jota. The farruca belonged to the flamenco repertory, while the Sevillian presentation referred to Andalusian dance. These forms appeared together in a Manila program without being treated as identical.

Alcazaren places the photographs within the Spanish-speaking culture of postwar Manila. He recalls that Spanish-language periodicals remained in circulation during the 1950s and that Spanish continued to be spoken in affluent households. The dancers named in the feature appear to have belonged to this social and cultural environment.

The article also records a connection between flamenco instruction and Philippine folk-dance training during the 1970s. As a student, Alcazaren joined the University of the Philippines Filipiniana Dance Group directed by Corazon Iñigo (who died recently, 5 August 2026). The company performed dances accompanied by gongs, drums and bamboo instruments. Its repertory also included Philippine jotas with bamboo castanets.

Alcazaren remembered that “the castanet dances, or jotas, were the closest thing I got to flamenco.” He based the comparison on the production of rhythm by the dancers themselves. Flamenco dancers marked the rhythm with their heels and hands. Philippine jota performers used bamboo castanets. In the Maglalatik, dancers struck coconut shells attached to their bodies.

This was a comparison drawn from Alcazaren’s experience as a performer. It does not establish a direct historical descent from flamenco to the Jota Manileña. It does show that dancers trained in the Philippines could recognize related uses of bodily percussion across the different forms.

Twentieth-century documentation

Francisca Reyes-Aquino began systematic research on Philippine folk dances during the American colonial period. Her publications converted dances into written descriptions with named steps and musical notation. Her books were used in schools and helped establish a national repertory of Philippine folk dances.

Postwar dance companies developed theatrical suites based on this research. The Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company was founded in 1957. The company recorded a piece titled Jota Manileña for its album Bayanihan 6, released in 1971. Smithsonian Folkways, “Jota Manileña”

Ramon Obusan founded the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group in 1972. The Foundation classifies La Jota Manileña as a Tagalog festival dance from Manila and places it within the culture of lowland Christian communities.

The photograph shows several couples performing on a grassy field before a seated audience. The principal male dancer wears a barong-style shirt, dark trousers and a decorated hat. His partner wears a blouse with a patterned skirt. Both hold elongated bamboo castanets.

The male dancer raises one arm above his head and crosses his legs in a deep step. His partner also raises one arm while turning toward him. Additional couples repeat similar movements in the background.

Several details resemble the figures in Martínez’s painting. The male dancers in both images wear broad hats and raise one arm. Their partners face them with an arm lifted. Both performances take place before thatched structures.

The photograph also records differences between the two presentations. The photographed dancers wear coordinated costumes and hold bamboo castanets. Several couples execute the choreography together. Martínez shows one couple wearing ordinary clothing, without visible castanets.

The Foundation’s 2018 video of the Jota de Manila documents its current staged form. The performance uses bamboo castanets and coordinated group formations. Its raised arms and partner movements correspond with the established vocabulary of the Philippine jota.

Current historical status

Martínez’s painting provides a dated image of a paired village dance accompanied by guitar in Manila in 1886. The movements are consistent with the jota, but the original title of the work is not known.

The painting predates the 1898 date given in the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Foundation’s account of the Jota de Manila. This does not establish that the exact Obusan choreography existed in 1886. It shows that related dance movements were already being performed in the Philippines during the late Spanish colonial period.

The surviving evidence documents several stages in the dance’s history. Spanish jotas circulated in nineteenth-century Manila. Philippine communities developed local versions. These dances were later documented and adapted for stage performance. The name Jota Manileña was firmly established in the national dance repertory by the twentieth century.