Leo MarkoPhD student
About me
I'm working on a PhD in theatre and performance studies since 2017. My background is in various disciplines, such as aesthetics, and I have a broad, interdisciplinary approach to art and culture. My research interests include nō theatre, presence and liveness, Daoist and Buddhist philosophy, phenomenology, everyday aesthetics, and utopia in performance.
Research
My dissertation project ”Live Sense: On the Appreciation of the Ineffable” is about how experiences of liveness and presence relate to a sense that things exceed or elude fixed description. The study proceeds from the recognition that presence and that which is here and now constitutes both what is most tangible and what is most elusive. 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.
The topic is approached on one hand in connection to contemporary performance theory, and on the other hand through the aesthetic theories of Zeami (c. 1363 – c. 1443), a founding figure of Japanese nō theatre. Among other things, Zeami’s theories on performance show how the aesthetic quality of art depends on a certain ambiguity or secrecy.