Ta ziya and the Problem of Re-presentation

Disputes over Ta’ziya, more or less, have fitted it into the category of theatre and this categorical determining has obscured the initial condition of a recollection called Ta’ziya. Therefore, in what follows Ta’ziya will be posed not as a section of the history of theatre in Iran, but rather as an example of itself alone (an paradigmatic hypothesis) in order to be able to participate in the process of its own intelligibility. Thus, the main question will be “whatness” of Ta’ziya prior to its being abandoned to the pre-existing categories. Responding to this question, as mentioned above, will be possible not by describing the characteristics of Ta’ziya but by suspending them. Therefore, the name that will be remembered for Ta’ziya in this suspension inevitably should be “mimesis”. In fact, in consequence of its exemplary exposition, Ta’ziya will attempt to give new meaning to the Greek mimesis. As we will see, it exposes mimesis neither as an imitation nor as a representation but as a pure presence of what is in front of us in the form of an art-work. As a result, Ta’ziya as an example will show in what way “theatre” has been shaped as a digression of authentic Greek mimesis and as its discursive destiny. Thus, the underlying problem comes into view: the opposition between simplicity of a presence and performance art (Theatrical Representation), between mere presence of things and a continuous performance called “reality”; that what is emphatically called “reality” is an elaborated one by an invisible performance.