Introduction

Abstract

The idea to publish a collection of essays on the relationship between performance and philosophy was born in April 2010 when Alice Lagaay and Laura Cull first joined forces to conceive and organize a conference on Performance and Philosophy in Berlin. The conference took place at the philosophy department of Freie Universität Berlin, where it was the culminating event of the philosophy project within the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Performing Cultures’ that was undertaken between 1998 and 2010. It was also intended as an interim gathering of the ‘Performance and Philosophy Working Group’ which had emerged from the context of Performance Studies international under the leadership of Laura Cull. We might have had a sense at the time that great things were going to be possible when, despite massive disruption caused by the eruption of Volcano Eyjafjallajökull in Norway (air travel was interrupted for several days throughout the northern hemisphere), the conference went ahead anyway (albeit under a cloud of ash and not without some improvised magic) and many new friendships were forged. The Berlin conference in fact turned out to be the catalyst for a string of developments that, in due course, led to the launch in September 2012 of the professional association Performance Philosophy, and, thereafter, to the successful procurement of a contract for a book series on Performance Philosophy of which this volume constitutes one of the opening titles.