influences Some of Hadad's early explorations in political cabaret included two shows: Nostalgia Arrabalera and Del Rancho a la Ciudad. This led to her producing and starring in the tragicomic musical La Occisa or Luz, Levántate y Lucha based on the life of Mexican singer Lucha Reyes (1904-1944), a very famous ranchera singer. Lucha Reyes is the one who started what Hadad calls "canto bravío" in Mexico. Hadad states in an interview in 1997 "traditionally women would sing the campirana song or bucolic songs with soft voices, with very high pitch. Women did not use the same force in singing compared to a man and Lucha (Reyes) is the one who initiates this type of ranchera singing in a bravía way among women. Because of that she changed the vernacular song". Another influences in the production of Hadad are the teatro de carpa (Tent theater, similar to street theater), and teatro de revista, two forms of the so-called género chico or “light” theater developed in Mexico from the late 1880s to the 1930s, and specially the "rumbera" films from the Golden Age of Mexican cinema (40s - 60s) whose plots were set primarily in cabarets. The principal stars were the actresses and dancers known as "Rumberas". Ms. Hadad says her act also has its origins in the German cabaret of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, “the political cabaret that was a new way of experiencing life” In the 1920s and 1930s, Mexico City's clubs were also filled with performers who skewered the powerful in their acts. But no one since has stuffed all of Mexican political and cultural history into a dress and laced it up with a feminist attitude quite like Ms. Hadad. In a way, one could say that Hadad's wild cabaret is a little like a Frida Kahlo painting come to life. Like Frida, she draws from the rich motherlode of images offered up by Mexican history and culture: Catholic saints, Aztec and Mayan iconography, revolutionary heroes, exuberant flowers and plants, campesino and indigenous folk art, the golden era of Mexican cinema and so on. Notable political cabaret performances Out of the production La Occisa or Luz, Levántate y Lucha, came Hadad's collaboration with the musical group that has accompanied her since, Los Tarzanes. Together, they have created various performances (La Mujer Ladrina, Apocalipsis Ranchero, La Mujer del Golfo, etc.). In her Heavy Nopal show, Astrid makes