Fernand Salzmann leads a lecture exploring whether the Bible contains erotic magic formulas — spells used to bring a desired partner to one’s bed. Starting from the Song of Songs, a provocative short book of the Old Testament, the talk delves into ancient love magic and its social and religious contexts. Salzmann examines rituals, textual traces and the role of supernatural powers in desires and disappointments, offering historical and interpretive perspectives.
In French.
Through mystery, belief and wonder, magic has threaded through societies since ancient times. For its 11th edition, this festival explores shifting boundaries between science and the supernatural, reason and the marvelous. Lectures, screenings, guided visits and hands-on workshops invite everyone to discover the history of magical practices from past to present and to reflect on our ongoing fascination with the unknown and the afterlife.
Alain Mabanckou, novelist and professor of literature at UCLA, is known for his vibrant, lyrical French and award-winning fiction, including the Renaudot-winning Mémoires de porc-épic and internationally translated titles. In conversation with journalist Pascal Schouwey, Mabanckou discusses themes of exile, identity and language, and reads from his latest novel Ramsès de Paris, exploring its humour, irony and storytelling strategies that reinvent diasporic narratives.
In French.
Week of events in Geneva bringing people together to confront racism through talks, roundtables, screenings, theatre, workshops, marches and guided visits. Activities are designed for all community members and include performances, film screenings, literary encounters, a human library, youth workshops and participatory theatre. The programme encourages listening, dialogue and collective reflection, offering multiple ways for neighbours and organisations to connect, learn and act together for a more inclusive city.
Echo is a transdisciplinary festival devised by Compagnie sturmfrei that reimagines Ovid’s Metamorphoses through 250 shifting myths. Artists, poets, philosophers and participants inhabit an experimental, two‑level environment transformed into evolving ECHO‑scenographies. The programme assembles performances, participatory formats and workshops that blur genres and invite improvisation, collective dramaturgy and sensory encounters. The work foregrounds mythic transformation, live experimentation and porous collaboration across disciplines.
In French.
La Cour des Contes is a storytelling festival held each spring in Plan-les-Ouates (Geneva), celebrating oral narration as a vital force for social connection and cultural dialogue. Since 1995, the festival has brought together storytellers from across the world, and the 2026 edition invites audiences to journey through epics and great narratives spanning continents and centuries — from Ireland, Mali, Algeria and Australia to closer shores. Blending classic tales with contemporary voices, performances, family shows and workshops, the festival affirms storytelling as a shared, intimate and deeply human art form.
For the opening evening of the Histoire et Cité festival, a conversation explores the fascinating figure of Geneva medium Élise Müller, known as Hélène Smith. Made famous through Théodore Flournoy’s 1899 book From India to the Planet Mars, her story intertwines spiritualism, artistic creation and women’s emancipation. The evening will open with an excerpt from the play of the same name performed by Rose Marie Gatta and Marco Sabbatini, followed by a multi-voice discussion on the mysteries surrounding this extraordinary woman.
In French.
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