Make the Dream Real: World-Building Performance by El Vez, The Mexican Elvis

Explores the intricate world-building of El Vez’s performances and how they enable audiences to imagine a more socially just society.

El Vez, also known as the Mexican Elvis, presents a powerful message of social justice and inclusion in his performances. Make the Dream Real interrogates how this message is activated through world-building: the use of a variety of theoretical, theatrical, and musical tactics that bring into being a progressive social space that refutes the current economic, political, social, and cultural configurations of the United States.

World-building in an El Vez show immerses the audience in a social space in which equal rights are guaranteed, inclusivity is fostered, difference is valued, and the violence of economic inequality is mitigated. Using a dramaturgical methodology that marries critical inquiry with theatrical practice, the book delves into the theoretical foundations that inform artist Robert Lopez’s work, and each chapter analyzes a different performative component he uses.

Make the Dream Real interrogates how El Vez’s playful engagements hold the United States to its egalitarian promises, voicing and enacting—however fleetingly—a just and richly inclusive social space through performance.

Karen Jean Martinson is assistant professor of dramaturgy in the School of Music, Dance, and Theatre at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University.