Equalizing act. What might it mean to equalize the relationship between performance and philosophy? To see philosophy as a kind of performance and performance as a kind of philosophy? A reminder here that the word ‘kind’, meaning “class, sort, variety,” comes from the Old English cynn, meaning “family”, and is related to the Proto-Indo-European root gene meaning “to give birth, beget”. So, thinking performance as a kind of philosophy and philosophy as a kind of performance means thinking how one gives birth to the other, how the two are related through familial ties, and how they might play together – child-like, as it were (Kind = child in German). That performance philosophy might also be invested in being kind, as in, considerate and hospitable, is another dimension of its ethico-affective practice.

Cull Ó Maoilearca & Lagaay, The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy, London 2020, p. 3 (introduction)

What is the nature of the sound of the inner voice and how does it compare with the physical resonance or musicality of spoken language? Is there a connection at all? And if so, how or where is one to place the ethicality or moral call associated with the voice? (…) Could it be that there is something sensual and rhythmical about human consciousness or indeed conscience itself?

Alice Lagaay, “Towards a (Negative) Philosophy of Voice” in: Kendrick/Roesner (eds.): Theatre Noise. The Sound of Performance 2011, p. 62-63

Engagement with philosophical thought, be it within or outside of the academic realm, has to do with finding a way to grapple with life – and death. Grappling with life is, to my mind, essentially philosophical. And also it is essentially performative in that how one grapples – which includes the question of when, to what extent and with recourse to which kind of tools one does so, but also and just as importantly: when, why or how one ceases to grapple or interrupts one’s grappling to allow oneself “to just be” – immediately affects one’s manner of living. 

Alice Lagaay, “Explosions of ‘creative indifference’” in The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy, 2020, p. 417.

Imagine a collective that does not acquiesce, but also holds up no banner and has nothing to sell! There is a place of being without purpose or characteristic where the absent evokes the possible. Or as the motto of another secret society would have it, Vestigia Nulla Retorsum: Never a step backward, Leave No Trace.

Alice Lagaay, Vestigia Nulla Retorsum. Leave no trace. In: Lerchenfeld 55, 2022, p. 32