Tércio, Daniel (2010) “Martyrium as Performance”, Performance Research, 15: 1, 90-99.

Excerpt:

"The historical material in this paper has undergone a possibly unusual transversality. The reader will therefore find numerous references which are chronologically and spatially quite separate: a Jesuit procession in the Lisbon of the 1500s; the evocation of the miraculous transmutation of worms into precious pearls; a performance by Marina Abramovic' and a ‘partition’ by Gina Pane, both from the 1970s; and, from the 21st century, a Stelarc and Sellars installation. (...) Two principal ideas lay the foundations: firstly, that culture is performance rather than text; secondly, the belief in the centrality of the body. The body is a repertory of infinite possibilities, including those of the refutation (or incorporation) of cultures and history. The celebration of the body’s unity, as much as a fragment, is one of the possible configurations of its potentiality. To the flyer declaration, “My body is a temple”, we could add that the fragment of my body is sacred. And this is the performative arc connecting martyr to relic which is linked to the container or reliquary."