"Performance of pain, performance of beauty" explores performance projects in war zones using Elaine Scarry's definitions of "pain" and "beauty" as a starting point. The way in which pain constricts the body and the experience that beauty can take a person beyond the body become a contested framework for considering two examples of performance. The first is a mass rally event called "Pongu Thamil" that has taken place in the war-affected regions of Sri Lanka, and the other is the use of theatre games for children in refugee camps. In both the problematic categories of beauty and pain are used to explore ways of understanding these projects. Does one seek to re-injure the body through displays of pain? Or is this a misreading of the creative, beauty-making acts of this community? Does the other correspond to the structure of beauty outlined by Scarry or can games also re-injure? The discussion seeks to create a complex picture of the relation between the experience of pain, the subsequent expression of pain and acts of creation, to start the process of generating dialogue on the theoretical ideas emerging from a research project exploring performance in places of war. (Contains 2 notes.)