Veterans with PTSD deal with experiences through dance

Four veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will perform in the National Endowment for the Arts-funded performance piece, "Action Conversations," Feb. 8-9 at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, Calif.

Choreographer and UCLA professor Victoria Marks, who choreographed "Action Conversations," has focused her attention on war and its impact on identity in recent years, creating "Not About Iraq" in October 2007. The Los Angeles Times said it "posed provocative questions about the role of the artist in civic life and what, if any, moral imperatives exist when it comes to making art in troubled times."

She told the LA Times in a Feb. 6 article that she originally wanted to work with physically disabled vets in her new piece: "'For me, 'Not About Iraq' had a lot to do with the way the media presents images of the heroic, so it got me thinking about the guy who comes back from Iraq as a double amputee,' she says. But then she began talking to veterans with PTSD. 'I realized that disability is not necessarily visible, especially when you consider that traumatic brain injury is the signature wound of Iraq. I think that 'disability' is going to be redefined because of this war.'

I agree with Marks that what has been defined as the disability experience in America may begin changing as the Iraq War veterans return home, but I hope these new members of the disability community will help their comrades in the disability rights movement continue to fight for the equal rights that all people with disabilities deserve.