7-14 October, 2025
“LES CULTURELLES” FALL 2025
In this edition, shimmering sculptures made from assemblages of stone and wood evoke the geological, political, and social upheavals of our world. A voice-and-electronic recital promises a sonic dawn. A dance performance explores the oscillation between improvisation and the notated score. A film speculates that music and dance can serve as epistemological tools to analyse how a train station functions. A debate questions a society increasingly centered around technology. An exhibition traces the history of a millennia-old body posture that expresses meditation, scholarly activity, and genius – as well as boredom and fatigue. Finally, a concert delivers a surge of enthusiasm.
The objective of the Les Culturelles projects is to strengthen relationships on the Campus and foster specific, albeit fleeting, sociability. By introducing elements of the unexpected, their purpose is to inject the unknown into the familiar and thus impact the daily life of the EPFL community. Our projects are original and custom-made for our School, they are also open to the City. They aspire to stir body and mind and open up space for the imagination.
Program:
Gare du monde
18h30 | Forum Rolex
A film by Jacques Lévy (geographer, honorary professor at EPFL)
Duration: 1h45
Gare du Monde is a fiction-science film that shows how cinema, music, and dance can also be stimulating resources for scientific invention. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the director, a dance historian, a composer, and a sociologist.
> Free admission
Can our taste for technology cause us to lose our taste for others?
12h15 | Rolex Learning Center
Discussion-debate L’heure H
Technology, designed to be individualized, fluid, and flattering, contrasts with the complexity and constraints of human relationships, raising the question: does a technology-centered world also make us more self-centered?
> Registration required (sandwiches provided)
Tremblement (Tremor)
18h00 | Rolex Learning Center
Exhibition opening
Geneva-based artist Séverin Guelpa presents a series of large sculptures evoking the tremors—geological, political, or ecological—that shake our world.
>Free admission
Score
18h45 | Forum Rolex
Dance, by Pettit*Rochet, Cie Utilité Publique
Score is a dance performance inspired by the MAPS (Movement – Analysis – Practice) method developed by renowned American choreographer Anna Halprin. This approach encourages intuitive and organic exploration of the body, where each dancer draws on their sensations to connect with their environment.
> Free admission
Petite messe solennelle
18h00 | Forum Rolex
Concert by the Ensemble vocal de Lausanne (EVL)
Gioacchino Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle brings together all his artistry, fervor, and audacity. Behind the simplicity of its forms, the modesty of its ensemble (20 singers and 4 soloists), and the clarity of its composition, it conceals a boldness and subtlety that were new at the time. Rossini himself referred to it as “the last mortal sin of his old age.”
> Free admission
Aurora Vocalis
12h15 | Rolex Learning Center (sous la voûte extérieure)
Voice-electro concert, Borbála Szuromi and David Poissonnier
A voice and electronics. The result is Aurora Vocalis, an immersive and resonant sound experience. The voice unfolds, transforms, and multiplies in real time using live looping and live electronics, becoming matter, echo, and space. An aurora of sounds envelops the audience.
> Free admission
Les têtes pe(n)santes
18h00 | Rolex Learning Center
Exhibition opening
By Jean-François Bert (UNIL) and Jérôme Lamy (CNRS, Paris)
Punctuated by a series of images and organized into short thematic chapters, this exhibition attempts to define the attitude of thought, sketching out its initial contours through the figures of ancient philosophers, poets, and early Christian meditators.
> Free admission
Organization: CDH-Culture
Contact: Véronique Mauron Layaz