A year and a half ago, Julia Horwitz, 17, saw a TED talk that inspired her and set her on a new path. So it was fitting that this Saturday, Horwitz, a Vistamar student, was inspiring a whole new audience with a talk of her own for the international conference series.
Standing on a stage at Manhattan Beach Middle School in front of a few hundred people, Horwitz, thin with a pixie cut, had the poise of someone much older. Her poem “Breaking up with My Anxiety,” delivered with a sharp insistence, grabbed the audience’s attention. But when she spoke about the impact of watching slam poet Sarah Kay’s TED performance and how slam poetry helped her overcome an eating disorder and come to terms with her sexual orientation, they were captivated.
“I truly believe the most healing thing a person can do is tell their story,” she said.
“A year and a half ago, I had my first run-in with spoken word on a TED talk. It instantly turned my idea of what poetry and art should be on its head.”
The first time she tried performing some slam poetry of her own, a “healing energy overcame” her.
“People in the audience started snapping, because they felt it, too. It became clear to me that art inspires other art, that honesty inspires other honesty.”
That performance won Horwitz a spot on the youth slam poetry team Say Word.
Horwitz urged the audience to battle their own demons and tell their stories.
“I’m here because of Sarah Kay,” she said. “I’d like to think that if I inspire at least one of you, I will have accomplished something.”
She concluded with a poem she said she wrote for her little sister and herself, called “G.I.R.L.”
But girl,
I can promise you
That you have never needed saving
There is no instruction manual
You are assembled
Exactly how you’re supposed to be.
The auditorium erupted into applause and a standing ovation.
“That was intense,” one woman said to a friend as they got up from their seats.
Friends and family crowded around Horwitz after, some in tears, some smiling as they hugged.
Learning from the example of youth was a theme throughout the day. High school art teacher Linda Hudson described how her students taught her to appreciate how selfies can make people “slow down and notice things.”
In the exhibit hall in the gym outside the auditorium, groups of young people helped participants explore, dream and create.
A giant canvas splattered with paint divided the gym. High schoolers Sara Reynolds and Asha Berkes, both 15, invited the adults milling around to pick up a squeegee, loofah, mini pumpkin, or other object and paint.
The idea, they said, was to “change people’s view of what a mural or art can be.”
The project was facilitated by their art teacher at Mira Costa High School, Kate Martin.
Many adults declined their invitation, but those few who strapped on booties to protect their shoes and an apron seemed liberated by the experience.
Lina Whitworth, an architect from Malibu, grabbed something that looked like a toilet brush, squirted some orange paint on the canvas, and made marks that looked like rays radiating from a sun.
Once she was finished, she sat down to take off her booties and said she had fun. She had watched TED talks online, she said, and came today because she “wanted to see in person.”
Other exhibits included the Beach Cities Robotics Club, which played catch with a robot, and a collection of photos of young people holding up signs that said “If I ruled the world. . .” and their answers filled in.
Later, J.D. Roth, the executive producer of weight loss shows The Biggest Loser and Extreme Weight Loss, began his talk with giant photos projected behind him of past clients, shirtless with their guts hanging out, looking defeated.
“You see someone fat, lazy,” he said. “That’s not what I see.”
Then he showed their “after” photos, a year later, svelte and projecting confidence. Switching back to one of the “before” photos, he seemed to sum up the underlying message of the afternoon.
“It’s not about who they are now,” he said. “It’s who they are inside and who they can be.”
