Astrid Hadad

Astrid Hadad (born 1957) is a Mexican singer and performer, mostly known for her irreverent political cabaret performances where she uses her own body as the scenic stage for all the symbols of Mexicanness (mexicanidad in Spanish) and excessive femininity through her costuming. Hadad was born in Chetumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico and currently lives in Mexico City. Of Mayan and Lebanese heritage, growing up near the Belize border and able to hear Caribbean radio stations coming from Cuba, has been hugely influential for her heterogenous perspective on social and cultural national life. Coupled with that, her incessant desire to critique the powers that be, her background as a political science major in college, her ongoing explorations in non-traditional theatrical forms, is all that fuels Hadad's unique political cabaret performances. As Roselyn Constantino has written, "[o]ut of Hadad´s meditations on the multiplicity of influences shaping her and other Mexican's sense of themselves, and on the violence implicity in that process, emerge performances featuring a fast-paced, fragmented, parodic unveiling of traditional Mexican song, dress, and dance. Hadad avails herself of the humorous sociopolitical criticism of cabaret, carpa, and teatro de revista--important theatrical styles in Mexican cultural history."