&sous.les.montagnes
- 28-31 October 2026 Pavillon ADC — Genève, CH
- 21 - 22 November 2026 Tojo — Bern, CH
The piece blends both Sami Bernath’s bodily memories and Swiss traditions, songs, folk rhythms, inherited gestures, notably that of the Löffelä, a traditional rhythmic practice that transforms wooden spoons into percussion instruments. Step by step, repetition, distortion and rhythmic saturation take effect. Traditional motifs become permeable.
Allowing himself to be guided by the traces of traditional practices, Sami Bernath explores their porosity, their convergence, and how they might come into conflict. &sous.les.montagnes is an exploration of forgetting, repression and the memory that lies ‘beneath the Swiss mountains’.
Bio
Sami, born and raised in Bern, is a dancer, choreographer and part of the dance collective hearhere. She received her foundational training as a dancer at the CFPAA in Geneva and earned a degree in contemporary dance from La Manufacture in Lausanne in 2021. Between 2021 and 2023 she deepened her practice as part of her bachelor's degree in Process Design at the HGK in Basel, where she explored research around porous traditions. She presented the first stage of this research in her solo zwüschä dä hüglä & between the hills at the Dampfzentrale in Bern in 2023. This was followed in 2024 by spooning & entre.les.montagnes at the Quarts d'heures in Sévelin, subsequently performed in various venues across Switzerland. In 2025, with the collective hearhere, they presented their first piece at the Tanzhaus Bern. Over the past years Sami has also co-founded the queerfeminist music label Forcefield Records and danced with Cie Folledeparoles, Cie PAYAN (Paléo Festival 2022), and with Anne Lise Tacheron in Safety Station.