Yale's Project O

Project O, as an ongoing dance experience and as a final presentation, delves deeply into the conflict between looking back and not looking back.  Explicitly, the dancers and choreographers examined the myths of Orpheus and his eternal regret for looking back at his wife Eurydice as they ascended out of Hades.  Looking closer, however, the tensions between looking back and not looking become more complex.  The title of the final performance: "Don't look back!: A Rock 'n' Roll Orpheus" implies a danger associated with looking back.  Looking back inherently impedes forward movement, and in terms of the racial issues the project sought to unpack, looking back could render racial equality impossible.

On the other hand, looking back is essential.  As the authors of the article put it, looking back and not looking back are "irreconcilable imperatives."  The subject matter for this project is drawn from the past - both the culture of televised teen dance parties and the ancient myths of Orpheus are pulled from another time to examine our current racial understanding.  

I think that this essential conflict is most interestingly manifested in the discussion of the current generations self-identification as "post-racial".  The "don't look back" attitude of this group leads to a "not our problem" mentality, which is essentially elective ignorance.  At the same time, if an entire generation is not looking back, this means that some things are already lost.  I found it very interesting that the muscle memory of the younger students was different than the one dancer who had been born before 1965.  He was the only one who had an actual memory, albeit vague, of segregated dance floors and the social conditions of that time.  The rest of the students could only learn from being told, which does not impart the same emotional impact as experiencing segregation during the time it took place.  This led to their extreme unease during dances in which they were segregated - they felt it called attention to their race and felt it portrayed attitudes they themselves did not hold.  

What is unclear is what effect this looking back had on the students.  After not looking back until participating in Project O, did they take on new attitudes?  Is that a positive thing?  Would it have been better to not look back and move on as if it never happened?  These central questions are ubiquitous in "post-racial" America.  Ultimately, looking back gives us a deeper understanding of where we are now, and where we're going as we move towards "the reality of a shared culture, and...overlapping of identities".