¿Dónde estaré esta noche? (Where will I be tonight?)

Claudio Valdés-Kuri’s latest film "Where will I be tonight"? shows a European myth in the present. He has chosen the “Virgin of Orleans“ (Joan of Arc) as his heroine to explore the complex relationship between religious and national concepts of modernity. Occupied France in the middle ages and contemporary Latin America reveal surprising parallels.

“Jeanne d´Arc stands for the struggle to go beyond oneself, the struggle of man against man.“ (Claudio Valdés Kuri)

Kuri more or less intuitively uncovers the complexity of global interrelationships and fault lines in his theatre. Here, he will be reading the themes of the Joan of Arc (the ‘Virgin of Orleans’) from the perspective of the New World. In his play ¿Dónde estaré esta noche? nine actors, who could have come straight from the streets and are (at first sight) barely distinguishable from the audience, explore the contradiction between political pragmatism and religious allegiance. Valdés Kuri plays with the boundaries between theatre and reality, between audience and performer, and between past and present. “What I am showing here are very simple, strict aesthetics in a totally Baroque frame. I don’t have any specific influences. My language is personal. In this piece you see two chairs, a table, and the theatre seats. By tearing down the fourth wall we seek active audience participation, which is a part of the stage setting: the actor is a spectator, and the spectator an actor. The condemned are judges, victims, perpetrators…” (Claudio Valdés Kuri)

Co-produced by Cervantino-Festival with House of World Cultures and Wiener Festwochen .

Direction: Claudio Valdés Kuri

Text (after G.B. Shaw): Claudio Valdés Kuri + Maricarmen Gutiérrez

Stage: Claudio Valdés Kuri + Igor Lozada

Costumes: María Rosa Manzini

Light design: Matías Gorlero

with: Gerardo Cruz, Maria Teresa Dal Pero, Gibran Galaviz, Carlos Lopez, Miguel Ángel Lopez, Fermín Martinez, Jose Ruy Olivares, Kaveh Parmas, Gastón Yanes

Première: 2004