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Leo MarkoResearcher

About me

I am a researcher in theatre and performance studies with a PhD since September 2024. My disseration is about presence, the ineffable and what it means for something to be live. It reaches across a wide area of aesthetic and philosophical concerns, with a firm foundation in theatre and performance studies. The basic understanding of liveness as being here and now is examined and the concept is expanded beyond the realm of what is technically live to what produces a sense of the live nature of reality. At the centre of the study is an analysis of Zeami's writings on performing art and aesthetics from 15th century Japan. Zeami is known as the most prominent figure in the history of nō theatre. In my dissertation the focus is on his understanding of beauty and interest as bound to a situation and related to "not knowing." These ideas are placed in dialogue with present day discussions on liveness and the theorization is also expanded in relation to various sorts of aesthetic experiences.

My research interests include nō theatre, presence and liveness, Daoist and Buddhist philosophy, phenomenology, critical theory, everyday aesthetics, and utopia in performance. 

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Live Sense: Rethinking Liveness through Zeami's Concept of the Flower

    2024. Leo Marko.

    Thesis (Doc)

    The term live is generally understood in the sense of “immediate,” or to indicate the fact that something takes place here and now. The fact that some events are perceived as live undoubtedly indicates something significant about those events. Still, scholarship in performance studies and neighboring fields have demonstrated that a simple, ontological, or technical definition of liveness is problematic if not impossible. This study rethinks the meaning of liveness, proposing that liveness pertains to the manner in which something is perceived and to what is perceived in that thing. Based on a reassessment of key conceptualizations of liveness and presence in performance studies, it develops an understanding of liveness as the characteristic of a sense-making that affirms difference, and which presupposes mediation rather than implying immediacy. The dynamics of this live sense are further developed through a consideration of the artistic treatises of Japanese nō actor and playwright Zeami (c. 1363 – c. 1443). These texts demonstrate how secrecy or not knowing is a precondition to produce a sense of liveness for the audience, expressed by the concept hana, the “flower.” The dissertation argues that this sense of secrets is significant for the artistic process as well, and that it relates to larger questions regarding understanding, aesthetics and the nature of reality. Then in the last chapter, the study takes up three examples of film, nō theater and pop music, exploring how a liveness that is objective and universal comes to be experienced subjectively in particular encounters of different kinds. In this way, the thesis as a whole provides a way of understanding liveness as the appreciation of the ineffable: a theoretical framework which serves both to analyze specific experiences and to shed light on the live foundation of sense-making as such.

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