Hit the Arts with Palo Alto Teens

By Mary Klein on behalf of Terry Godfrey

This weekend offers two displays of teen creativity in Palo Alto – on March 31 and Framing Teens’ Experience through April 1. Both events showcase the enthusiasm, resiliency, and collaborative spirit that young people inject into the broader community of Palo Alto.  Both demonstrate that “creative expression” is indeed an important developmental asset for youth in Palo Alto.  

Hit the Lights is a dance event created by the city’s Teen Advisory Board – featuring Palo Alto’s three best teen DJ’s and lighting by Tribal Existence, an award-winning team of laser- and black-light artists.  Framing Teens’ Experience is an exhibit of nontraditional self-portraits by Palo Alto teens that examine challenging, life-changing events.  The youth behind both these events are motivated by sharp insights into the importance of creativity in their own lives.  Both events are well worth the price of admission:

• Hit the Lights: Dance event for ALL high school students in Palo Alto
  • DJ dancing, light show, game room, lounge, and great food!
  • $5.00 in advance from paloaltotab@gmail.com or at the door
  • Saturday, March 31, 8:00 – 11:00 PM
  • , 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

• Framing Teen’s Experience:  Exhibit of nontraditional self-portraits
  • Through Sunday, April 1
  • , 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto

Hit the Lights is the second citywide dance planned by the Teen Advisory Board (TAB) and the Youth Collaborative to meet needs expressed repeatedly by teens in city-sponsored forums.  As Anni Liu of TAB explains, “A lot of kids wanted a dance where we could have kids from all three high schools in Palo Alto come together  – Gunn, Paly, and Castilleja.”  Framing Teens’ Experience is the first series of public art exhibits produced by teens in high school art classes and workshops by Break Through the Static, and organized with local businesses by the Youth Collaborative. 

The teens who choose to collaborate in organizations like TAB, the Youth Collaborative, and Break Through the Static to host creative events for their classmates are teens who also express broader understandings about the arts as vehicles for fostering common purposes and common understandings among people.  For example, one TAB member, Soham Tikekar, has invested countless hours of his photography skills into on-line artistic collaborations.  As he tells it, “I’ve been involved in photo for years now.  Just recently, we did this thing called “Hit Record,” which is an online collaboration with people from around the world to create one project, which is shown at film festivals.  It shows me that photo is not just an art, it’s a tool to communicate with people in a more articulate way.”  Teen painter Audrey S. also believes that the arts can catalyze human collaboration at the highest level:  “The expressions of artists through shape and color can spark ideas in the minds of others who can then possibly become the next greatest inventors.” 

Beyond such “productive outcomes” that the arts can foster, these teens also value artistic expression for the in-the-moment enrichment that it brings to individual lives.  Anni Liu, TAB member and cellist, has been playing music at farmers’ markets and on street corners for years.  By playing music in these settings, she has gained some insight into the ability of artistic expression to guide individuals to relate more deeply to their own memories and experiences.  “It’s something about the way you interact with people on the street, you realize it’s not all about school, it’s also about taking life as it comes.  One guy came up to us after we were playing, and he told us, ‘You guys are making a difference and you don’t even know it.’  A lot of people come by, and they say things like, ‘We got married to this song 15 years ago.’  Some people just stand there staring at a tree for 20 minutes, listening and thinking.”

In the exhibit labels that they wrote to accompany their paintings at City Hall, two teen painters also described artistic expression as a process that guides artists to relate more deeply to their own memories and experiences.  In describing her painting “Hope,” Audrey S. explains, “Throughout life, encountering challenge is unavoidable. . . This painting has many different components built into it with dangers coming from all around you.  However, the main point is that one continues on their own path, and in the end, everything will be okay.”  Similarly, painter David P. describes his work “Docking” as an expression of personal development, “Freshman year was a big change. . .  I think I took more time than the average student to adjust to the new way of doing things.  This painting is an illustration of how I finally feel adjusted to high school.  The ship is finally coming out of the open sea and coming in sight of the port.”

Finally, a sense of the arts as a refuge from the stresses of everyday life is also of central importance to teen artists.  TAB member Sonal Prasad explains, “Whenever I take dance lessons, I find it’s a really great way to get refreshed and get away from everything else that’s going on in my life.  I probably won’t be a dancer when I grow up, but it’s something I’ll always want to do on the side.  It’s a great stress reliever.”  Painter Audrey S. agrees, “For me, the important thing about art that it allows me to stop worrying about the stress in my life. There are no boundaries on what I can and cannot do, and it truly frees my inner thoughts through paper . . .” The irony is not lost on these students that this quality of relaxation in the arts often drives the greatest productivity in the arts.   For example, as Soham Tikekar tells it, “Obviously, photo is a creative process.  It gives me a break from doing physics for homework, which is pretty much all math and there’s only one way to do it and if you don’t do it that way, you’ve got it wrong.  The thing I like about photography is that even if you totally mess up, you can come up with a result that's something different and something that may even end up being your style.”

All Palo Alto high school students are invited to join Hit the Lights this Saturday, and all community members are invited to view Framing Teens’ Experience at City Hall.  These events promise to inspire all who attend them and give strong evidence to the finding that “Creative Expression” is central to healthy human development.