2022 Teen Arts
by Emma Reznick
This year, Biotech’s A&E presented the fruits of their labor at the Monmouth Teen Arts festival on March 17th and 18th, held at Brookdale Community College, with the categories of Dance, Theatre (Drama), Musical Theatre*, Choir, Vocal Solo and Small Vocal Ensemble, Jazz and Large Instrumental Ensemble, Instrumental Solo and Small Instrumental Ensemble, Piano, Creative Writing, Visual Art, Photography, and Video (Film). A&E members – and other BTHS students – showcased individual art as well as group performances Keep reading to appreciate BTHS student works. DISCLAIMER: All works below are shown with the permission of the creator.
Arsheya Puri, Visual Art and Photography
Kevin Yuan, Poetry
Imagine
Being a mayfly—
Spending months in murky water,
Dreaming of growing wings;
Finally, it emerges from its past self's shell for the last time,
Furiously soaring and flipping in the moonlight
For little more than a day's worth of time
Before the embers of its life go dark.
Imagine being reborn
Radiant for one precious day,
Dying silently the next;
You might rage at the universe—
At its blatant iniquity—
Fighting the darkness clouding the edges of your reality
You might hope,
Hope for just one more moment
That you might gaze upon the starry tapestry above
And feel the air rush past your weary limbs.
You might even be content,
Knowing your legacy would be
Only of your glorious, triumphant flight
Sabrina Xi’s “To Hold a Beautiful Girl’s Hand”, Poetry
Here is how it goes:
there is a beautiful girl sitting next to you. She is truly beautiful, far more beautiful than you are.
You love her.
This is reminiscent of another poem—that one starts with a beautiful boy sitting next to another
you in a car that loves the other you.
Perhaps that is how all love starts: sitting next to someone. Loving them. Yearning to touch.
The beautiful girl sitting next to you on the couch has a beautiful hand lying on that couch. It is a
truly beautiful hand:
Firm. Broad. Calloused and rough and capable. If she pressed both of them on your shoulder
blades your back would be warmed by the sun. If she twined them together they would grow into
wings so big she would be carried away out of instinct and centuries of evolution and instinct. If
she twined them together you would never be able to breathe again
because you would never be able to hold those beautiful rough and calloused hands
in yours
again,
though of course you have only held them once,
roughly and coarsely as if you did not cherish it
when you meant, of course, the complete opposite.
They are beautiful hands. Truly beautiful hands. She is a truly beautiful girl.
You want to hold her hand. You want to breathe. You cannot breathe if you are not holding her
hand,
because, of course, you are young and sputtering
and all you want to do (now or ever) is to hold a beautiful girl’s hand in your own
and feel its shape and its texture and trace the life-lines like they mean something,
like you holding her hand means something
to you
and to her.
You want to hold a beautiful girl’s hand
but of course you shouldn’t because she is a beautiful girl and you, of course, are not a beautiful
girl
or even an ugly boy.
And yet, you want to hold that beautiful girl’s hand
because of course you do
and when she smiles at you, all crooked teeth and mishmashed lips,
you suffocate underneath the weight of your desire.
She smiles at you and you pine and you wonder
if she would say yes, maybe,
if you asked.
You touched her arm, once. It was soft, slightly bristly from where the hair poked at your own.
It was lovely.
There is nothing quite so lovely as the feeling of her limbs touching yours, skin-on-skin.
There is nothing quite so lonely as yearning.
There is nothing quite so lonely as
when a beautiful girl is sitting next to you and you want to ask her to hold her hand but you can’t
so you sit there in silence and want
and want and want and want
to touch her and hold her
and want and want and want
to ask her if you could mean as much to her as she means to you
and want and want and want
to know if there is love between you
and want and want and want
to hold her hand
(and not just any beautiful girl’s hand)
in yours.
Janie Lee, Visual Art with Digital Tools, also exhibited at Freehold Raceway Mall
Dalal Ijeh’s Lunch Break!, Visual Art in Ink, also exhibited at Freehold Raceway Mall
Many other BTHS students also exhibited their talent at Teen Arts, including performances from BTHS Choir, BTHS Dance Team, Beats for a Cause, and a performance of the BTHS school musical. Several students were awarded for their hard work and proceeded to the state-level competition or had their work exhibited at Freehold Raceway Mall. Overall, Teen Arts Festival was a wonderful display of art from BTHS students, and will hopefully continue to be so in the coming year.