Read it here: Ecumenica Interview
When Wajcha Meets David Mason: A Conversation with Cláudio Carvalhaes
DAVID MASON EDITOR, ECUMENICA
CLÁUDIO CARVALHAES UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY [ABSTRACT]
Ecumenica editor David Mason talks with Cláudio Carvalhaes, Professor of Worship at Union Theological Seminary, about Carvalhaes’s play When Wajcha Meets Pachamama, in which, with others, he has performed in New York City, and around the world. The play involves a clown named Wajcha who searches for the means of healing a wound that he has discovered in the earth and in himself. In the conversation, Carvalhaes articulates his ideas about the relationship between theatrical performance, ritual, prayer, and play, and explains how the earth depends on a transformation of human consciousness and identity.
[KEYWORDS] earth, prayer, ritual, play, clown
I had known Cláudio Carvalhaes for some time already, when I heard about When Wajcha Meets Pachamama. I’d known him for years, in fact, although, as happens in our digital world, we had never been in the same room. Carvalhaes has been a peer reviewer for Ecumenica, so we had communicated quite a bit about journal manuscripts. But I had also become familiar with Carvalhaes’s creative methods of leading worship and ritual. Our digital world also makes it possible for us to see colleagues “in action,” and I was already a fan of Carvalhaes’s sermons and songs. I became a full convert, so to speak, watching video of Carvalhaes leading a congregation on the Mexico side of the USA’s border wall, back in 2019. The congregation painted a bright landscape of flowers and trees, blue sky and sun, on the wall itself, after which Carvalhaes preached a fervent sermon concerning, among other things, our responsibility to take the side of the oppressed—of immigrants to the USA, particularly. The message was itself convincing. But I was especially won by the fact that Carvalhaes preached much of this sermon—there, in Mexico, with “the wall” and its new mural as a backdrop—in luchador regalia. Blue and white mask, cape, desert-colored suit coat inscribed with the words ni una muerte mas. This grim world needs more of Carvalhaes’s genuinely unpretentious play. Carvalhaes is Professor of Worship at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and a multitalented performer. His play When Wajcha Meets Pachamama, in which he is the principal performer, received the “Most Creative Play” award at the 2023 New York Theatre Festival. He has performed the play many times, in many different places, and with many different people as creative collaborators and as supporting performers.