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.