Technique And Presentation/Style

When you google the word "Best Juggler" you find that the first three entries are for a man named "Anthony Gatto".  This is a man who works for Cirque D' Solei, holds numerous records in juggling, and is without a doubt truly amazing.  What you will also find that he is referred to in the community as the best "technical" juggler, which makes me ask the question "What is the difference between a technical juggler and a "normal" juggler"?  I don't think that there really is a difference but rather instead the question here is why do we say this sentence.  Rather in many artforms such illusion and object manipulation there is a growing trend in which we are more likely judged not on form of presentation but rather instead technique of presentation.

Technique stems from the green word techne meaning "craft/manship".  When we talk about the technique of a particular art form we are discussing the necessary skills in order to do certain things.  This is your brushstroke,  your ability to do various patterns and juggling while isolated from the ground, your method of glazing pottery,  your ability to do a "classic pass" or a "hindu shuffle".  These are all  examples of "techniques".  If something is a technique then we can say that they can normally be taught in form or another and that they can also be compared and judged to other users of the technique.

This is different from what we might call "presentation/style".  Don't get me wrong there are techniques for how to talk in front of a crowd but while those are techniques of presentation they are different from what I am talking about.  When you present a work of art, an illusion, etc there is usually a "way" in which you do so.  Often enough if people look at many of your works of art they will see similarities between them and they might refer to this as your "style".  How you choose to interweave your various techniques to create a demonstration of/or attempt at art can be considered your style of presentation.

It is difficult to argue about which style of "presentation" is better or worse,  it happens but seems that eventually such arguments are reduced down to I "feel" statements.  The arguments are those of subjective personal statements like "I feel that Gatto is a better juggler than so-and-so" or " I think Francis Menotti (an illusionist out of philly) is an artist in his craft while so-and-so is just a hack".  There are trends that do occur and certain styles of performers will emerge as a whole.  In this way it easy to go back to technique as a judgement criteria,  "I feel that Gatto is a butter juggler than so-and-so because he is able to juggle seven rings and bounce a ball on his head".

The act of demonstrating technique is itself a presentation of sorts.  In this way the lines between presentation/style and technique become blurred especially within the walls of illusion and juggling.  I can't comment on anything else (but I assume there are instances of this).  Within juggling any act of juggling is itself a presentation and therefor technique and presentation are difficult sometimes to determine while in illusion the presentation is often enough used to cover technique and so "blocking" is technique and once again it is hard to determine.

It is relatively easy to comment on the notion of technique,  but in a display of art and skill technique is only half the battle.  I understand that there are some performers who are known solely for their technique and that there performers who are known solely for their style of presentation but both of them are using the other half.  Gatto's style of creating "challenges" in order to demonstrate talent with juggling without actually having to create much "artistic" flavor allows him to use technical juggling primarily for instance.  While he is a "technical" juggler his style allows for that.

So I argue it is not the best of ideas to reduce grading criteria of a routine down to technique without talking about the method of presentation as well.  

Supply and Demand In Sideshow and Entertainment

This is sort of a post in response to a thread on a Facebook forum dealing with sideshows.  I had a few thoughts on the topic of how undercutting or "free" performers/djs/ or other entertainers affects the rest of the industry when it comes to how much we get paid.

Supply and Demand are concepts from the financial world that have just as much impact in the world of sideshow and entertainment.  By understanding how Supply and Demand work within the industry I feel that we can hone ourselves to take advantage of these principals or at least understand what it is that we are actually dealing with.  Entertainment itself is not “one” supply and “one” demand,  but instead it is many demands and many supplies that relate to each other in the same that we as performers relate to each other.  As I am influenced by another performer from whom I learn I find that my finances are interwoven with theirs.

Supply and Demand is a theory of finance about how the supply of a product is related to the demand for a product.  The theory basically holds the cost of a product will decrease as either the supply for it goes or the demand for it goes down.  On the other hand said product’s price will increase when the  demand increases or the supply goes down.  In this instance we performers are a product,  we’re selling ourselves as entertainment.

So the supply for performers and entertainment should also be related to the demand for that entertainment.  In the thread that influenced me to write this there were a number of stories from performers who found that as they taught or were “underbid” by performers they found that the money they could make tended to decrease as well from those venues.  So the notion is that as the “general” supply of performers increases the amount of money we tend to make will decrease.I have heard this from performers over the last few years about the sheer amount of new “entertainers” attempting to make their name.  I have also heard about problems concerning the notion of getting paid.  It seems that this is the case that these two factors are related to each other.  Unsurprisingly there is a demand for teachers for these sorts of circus arts and skills which has caused more people with these skill sets to emerge and add to the supply.

But, I don’t think we are without hope.  I think that by understanding supply and demand we can at least make things better or understand what we are playing against.   What we are often asked is what our specialties are, what makes us different from other performers.  Often enough the fact that I am a 5 club juggler puts me over a 3 club juggler (what juggling entertainers refer to as “hack shows”) in terms of what I am capable of doing.  I am a different “juggler” and there for the supply and demand is going change, there is a different supply of “advanced” jugglers then there is of “beginner” jugglers.  So by me having a specialty that I can “sell” I suddenly become a much more “marketable” entertainer.  So we can change “who we are”.  For the first two years of being an “entertainer” I found that there were so many fire performers that as a male it was impossible to actually get paid as a male fire performer.  For every one fire performer requesting money there was at least 3-5 who would do it for free.

Now I can also change my venue, instead of performing at parties, clubs, and raves I can perform at kid shows, talents shows, ren faires, and the like.  Each of these are a different demand and they each have a different supply.  All of a sudden by being a fire performer who does not mind working with children or talking with others I completely change and now there is much less in the way of supply of performer who do acts like I do.

You can also change the demand.  Jim rose is famous for doing this with Marilyn Manson(you can look up his methodology and study it).  There are a number of sideshow entertainers such as Brian Brushwood and flow artists such as Ben Drexler who have made their name and living by being prominent on YouTube and providing to the community which has a completely different supply and demand.  However being successful on YouTube has catapulted them both to the point where there is a demand for them in the actual world.  So with that being said, you can create demand.  In the case of copycats you can also take advantage of the demand for specific performers or specific style of performers. 

But it also seems that these are all related to each other.  While shows such as AGT and the X-Factor have increased the visibility of side show entertainment,  it has also made it so that the television and YouTube have become part of the supply as well.  As the other aspects of the entertainment industry such as DJ’s have their problems those problems also become part of our problems.  Just some food for thought.