I come from a country where voter abstention among 16- and 17-year-olds, who aren’t even required to vote, was just 12.7% in our most recent election. In the October 25 runoff, 128 million Brazilians came together on a single election day to celebrate their constitutional right to go to the polls and choose our future. However, after last Tuesday’s midterm elections, on November 3, I came back to a USAFacts article explaining that fewer than 30% of Americans aged 18 to 24 voted in the 2022 midterms. When I discovered that, I simply couldn’t understand it.
During my first few weeks at Duke, one particular question kept coming up in my FOCUS discussion classes: Is American democracy declining? An overwhelming majority of my classmates, particularly American students, seemed to agree with this idea. A common pattern emerged in their comments. They would first point to the rise of immigration-related issues, foreign wars, excessive government spending, and a long list of other concerns that crossed both Democratic and Republican administrations.
I grew up in Brazil. Although my country is relatively peaceful when it comes to civil liberties, I wouldn’t classify it as the world’s best example of democracy. How could America, the land of liberty, have such a different level of political participation than the country I am from? While younger Brazilians were showing up at the polls in growing numbers, why don’t I see a bigger, younger political wave in America?
I began looking further back in American history, trying then to understand what political and social mobilization once looked like in this country. During a class on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I became particularly interested in the 1960s, a decade shaped by the Civil Rights Movement, opposition to the Vietnam War, and a counterculture that challenged traditional American values.
As these facts and ideas unfolded in my classroom discussions and countless writing assignments, I began finding answers in musical theater, which made my investigations much clearer.
I joined Duke’s Hoof ‘n’ Horn costume team almost by accident. At a friend’s invitation, I was convinced the best way to join that creative space, without knowing how to sing or dance, was through costumes. As someone who had probably stepped inside a theater no more than ten times in my life, I honestly never expected to find answers to the questions I had been raising so passionately in the classroom.
During one of our first meetings, our Costume Designer-in-Chief, Erica Gatewood, began explaining the concept behind the musical Hair.
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical premiered Off-Broadway in 1967 before making its Broadway debut in 1968. Often considered the first rock musical, the production portrays the advances and contradictions of the 1960s counterculture movement.
Krishna Shah, director of Hoof ‘n’ Horn’s production, told me:
“Hair made history by being the first to do many things and by challenging audiences through its controversial and provocative content. Many members of the original cast were actual hippies, ordinary New Yorkers who were picked off the streets, which made the production feel particularly authentic. A third of the original cast was Black, which was especially significant at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was taking place. The original production also included a full nudity scene, which our production does not have.”
It was at the musical’s first dress rehearsal that I realized these were exactly the answers I had been looking for in class, or at least clues that could lead me to them.
The musical then follows a group of long-haired hippies from what was called the “Age of Aquarius,” an astrological era that, for the counterculture, signaled a break from their parents’ values. They actively opposed the military draft for the Vietnam War. Our main character, Claude, tries to navigate his young life, love, free sex, and rebellion against conservative society and his parents. He is ultimately forced to make a decision: should he tear up his draft card, as his friends have done, or succumb to the pressure of his parents, who represent the conservative values and patriotism of 1960s America, and serve in Vietnam?
Austin Aagaard, who plays Claude in Hoof ‘n’ Horn’s production, told me:
“He doesn’t know exactly what the right choice is, and he understands that either decision comes with its own consequences (…) Sometimes, people feel like whatever decision they make will disappoint someone while making someone else happy.”
Returning to my classroom after this conversation with Austin, I couldn’t help but ask my classmates why, if they believed American democracy was declining, they weren’t going out themselves to fight for what they believed in. And, as I expected, I got essentially the same answer Austin gave me about his character: consequences. Perhaps that is where the connection between Claude and today’s Duke students becomes more interesting. Their circumstances are certainly different, but both face the pressure to make choices within a society that has already established what it expects of them.
In the same conversation, Austin added:
“There is an expectation of where they should end up, and a lot of the time, that means going into finance, investment banking, economics, or something within that world. I do think people can sometimes be pigeonholed into certain industries. If they had more opportunities to explore different paths and try different things, they might actually discover what they want to do. I think Claude’s outlet for that exploration was the tribe.”
At this point, two ideas had taken shape in my mind. First, America, particularly during the 1960s, was one of the world’s leading examples of protests that achieved, consolidated, and expanded social rights. Second, what currently prevents younger generations from reclaiming that position is fear of the consequences that might come from such a “revolt.” And, on the one hand, it is impossible not to understand this fear, right?
After all, younger generations like Gen Z and Millennials face severe housing affordability barriers: 62% of Gen Z worry they will never own a home, most of them because they can’t afford it. In this context, is it really worth risking a pre-med track or giving up a dream internship at McKinsey, both of which could easily help someone afford a house within the next five years?
Does the health of democracy really matter when the fear of not being able to afford a place to live or guarantee food on the table hangs over the youngest members of our society? Getting politically involved, risking parental support, or even becoming more vulnerable to an uncertain future seemed to be among my friends’ most pressing concerns. Even though they hold educational and social privilege, many still seem hesitant to take a stand in major political organizing movements.
So I stayed faithful to my ping-pong between the classroom and the stage, moving back and forth between questions and answers without reaching a definitive conclusion. When I brought these same questions back to the Hoof ‘n’ Horn set, one of my favorite characters, Woof, answered.
Neil “Woof” Donovan is responsible for pushing the “sexual revolution” side of the tribe. In one of the show’s most memorable musical numbers, “Sodomy,” Woof explores the era’s religious contradictions. Always carrying his rosary, he presents himself as a major icon of the anti-establishment attitude.
Reese Ritter, who plays Woof in Hoof ‘n’ Horn’s production, showed me something I had not stopped to consider:
“One important aspect of Woof is his relationship with religion. He carries a rosary throughout the musical and performs different Catholic rituals at various moments. At the same time, he is deeply involved in the free love movement (…) Rather than affirming people’s religious faith and trying to convert them, Woof is inviting them into the free love movement. It is a beautiful combination of two seemingly different aspects of his character.”
Building on this comment, Reese added:
“That was a huge pillar of the hippie community, and it is something the musical really tries to communicate: that this way of living and expressing yourself is beautiful. At the same time, the show delivers an important message about war and how it affects real people.”
Woof reminded me that the movement was also about something else: the freedom to experiment with different ways of living, believing, loving, and belonging. The tribe was not simply a group of young people protesting the establishment; it was also a community where they could explore identities and possibilities that traditional society did not necessarily accept.
And perhaps this is where Hair is especially interesting to a generation of Duke students in 2026. Claude’s dilemma may feel distant from most college students’ experiences today, but the stress to meet expectations, build a financially secure future, and avoid decisions that might compromise that future is not entirely unfamiliar. Likewise, Woof’s search for a community where he could express himself raises a question that goes beyond the political circumstances of the 1960s: where do young people today find the freedom to experiment with who they want to become?
Claude’s story doesn’t end in rebellion: he reports for duty and is killed in Vietnam. But before that, through the tribe, he pursued something new, unconventional, and disruptive. He questioned his surroundings and, through this exploration, found something deeper than a political movement: a community he could rely on. There, surrounded by long-haired hippies, he came to understand that what truly defines one’s existence is not merely government decisions or wars, but rather the meaning one chooses to give to life, the friendships one builds, and the questions one dares to raise.
Nearly six decades after the Summer of Love, Hoof ‘n’ Horn is bringing these questions back to campus. Duke students may not be recreating the counterculture movement, and they may not need to. By choosing to perform Hair, they join a tradition of artistic expression that provokes audiences to reconsider what society accepts, rejects, and expects from its younger generations.
And now, still caught in this unfinished conversation between the stage and the classroom, with neither side having provided a definitive answer, I invite you, the reader who has made it this far, to join this same discussion about college students’ participation in political organizing.
The musical will have its final run of performances this Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, November 12–15. I invite you to bring the questions I have raised, along with your own, when you come to watch the musical, appreciate your fellow students’ incredible performances, and perhaps even ask them what they think.
So, Duke students, be sure to wear flowers in your hair. And go see Hair.
by Samuel Silva de Moura
