Dancing Pines

The Swiss, whether living in cities or the countryside, have always practiced and cultivated their very own local customs. This provides the country with an enormous wealth of communal religious and secular occasions and lively traditions. In many villages, districts and regions these are essential parts of the cultural heritage that are integrated into everyday life and passed on, whether similar to 100 years ago or adapted to the present. The photos and texts in this book do more than to convey a perfect, often well-established image of the tourism brochures, as they rather reflect the particular specific atmosphere that the authors and photographer have experienced at each location. Through conversations with the participants, light is shed on what they do is really about and what it means for the individual person. It is a collection of beautiful trouvaillas and stories of people who cultivate their customs and traditions with a lot of heart and soul.

Folklorist Sibylle Gerber is curator at the historical museum of Lucern.

Stephanie Hess, journalist, works for the travel section of a Swiss women magazine as well as a freelance writer.

Karin Britsch, social scientist, has been since fall 2018 a chief editor and presenter for the Swiss national broadcast SRF.

Dominique Rosenmund is a Swiss photograper. She is the head of the picture editing department of the Luzerner Zeitung.