The subtitle to “Look at the Darkness (Don’t Stare)” is “A Dance Film by Maya Tillman Rayton.” That’s a somewhat accurate description as there definitely is dancing, a lot of it. At the same time Rayton uses the film to tell a personal narrative about rediscovering joy after experiencing emotional burnout. The film acts almost like a video essay at times, rather than a series of interconnected dance numbers, which its subtitle might imply. The film as a whole is more complicated than that.
The dance numbers in “Look at the Darkness” are awesome. Rayton choreographed the film and dances alongside The House of Dragons, Unity Dance Crew and students from The Lawrence Arts Center. Everyone involved is wickedly talented and every sequence is so much fun, the biggest highlight is a massive one take number towards the end of the film.
Where the wheels start to come off a little bit is in the incorporation of the story. “ Look at the Darkness” is divided into three parts: Functional Freeze, Finding Joy, and Collaboration. The film starts with narration from Rayton describing a point in her life where, despite loving her job, she realized she had deprived herself of rest. She found herself functionally frozen, able to come into work but unable to do anything outside of those parameters. There’s a scene of Rayton dancing, interconnected with shots of her panting and exhausted. Afterwards is a discombobulating montage of TikToks, designed to invoke the feeling of receiving a little bit of everything all of the time. However, the last TikTok is actually some helpful advice: take a breath, find some peace. This first chapter sets up two interesting themes to explore: following your passion versus feeling burnt out in your pursuit of it and the addictive, mental illness-forming nature of social media versus the content creatures who want to make the world a better place.
The problem is, after that first scene there’s maybe one other dance number that continues the story. In fact, because all the numbers are so fun, it almost feels like the story keeps getting interrupted by scenes of people dancing. There’s no sense of escalation or culmination, just a lot of talented people dancing well. The final number is easily the most mismatched with its chapter, featuring solo performances by Rayton and a few other dancers in a chapter titled “Community”. The latter two chapters both feature more self help TikToks (the film’s title is taken from a TikTok by RuPaul) but Rayton is never depicted actually taking their advice. There are clips of Rayton rehearsing with her troupe, which are very wholesome and sweet, but almost imply the issue was that she needed to fall in love with dance again, not her need to establish time to rest. The images on screen don’t often convey what the film’s narration and TikToks tell the audience they’re meant to convey.
I had the pleasure of speaking to Rayton after the screening I attended. She told me she wanted audiences to take away that it was okay to find joy. I would go further as to say that in creating this film, sharing her artistry and passion for dance, she didn’t just give us permission to find joy, she created joy for us to find. Still, I can’t help but think that with a little more time and consideration “Look at the Darkness (Don’t Stare)” could’ve been great.
