PANTOMIME, the representation of emotions, action and various situations entirely by body movement, gesture and steps. It occurs in all primitive stages of civilization, expressing itself in war-dances, animal mimicry and sacrificial rites, and in Indian and Egyptian civilization it had already developed artistic forms. The Greeks sometimes employed choruses to accompany their pantomimes. The Romans, especially, cultivated pantomime, and in the time of the empire they even had a special school for its development. They distinguished the various characters in the pantomime by means of masks. They also employed scenic effects, resulting in dramatic action presented in the manner of the the atre. In Roman usage the term was applied both to the actor of this kind of play and to the play itself ; less logically, we also use the term to signify the method of the actor when confined to gesticulation. Historically speaking, so far as the Western drama is concerned there is no intrinsic difference between the Roman pantornineus and the modern "ballet of action," except that the latter is accompanied by instrumental music only, and that the personages appearing in it are not usually masked. The English "dumb-show," though fulfilling a special purpose of its own, was likewise in the true sense of the word pantomimic. The modern pantomime, as the word is still used, more especially in connection with the English stage, signifies a dramatic entertainment in which the action is carried on with the help of spectacle, music and dancing, and in which the performance of that action or of its adjuncts is conducted by certain conventional characters, origi nally derived from Italian "masked comedy." Later Development.—The religious mystery plays of the middle ages again show traces of the old pantomime—as a later development came the commedia dell' arte (q.v.) introducing the popular figures of Harlequin (q.v.), the clown, Truffaldino, etc.— in which song and dance alternated with improvised jests. Plays of this nature written round the traditional Hanswurst enjoyed the greatest popularity in Germany and especially in Vienna, until well into the 19th century.
In Germany, where the term pantomime was not used, a rude form of dramatic buffoonery, corresponding to the coarser sides of the modern English species so-called, long flourished, and threw back for centuries the progress of the regular drama. The banish ment of Hanswurst from the German stage was formally pro claimed by the famous actress Caroline Neuber at Leipzig in a play composed for the purpose in 1737. After being at last sup pressed, it found a commendable substitute in the modern Zauberposse, the more genial Vienna counterpart of the Paris feerie and the modern English extravaganza.
About 1723, this type of entertainment gained a firm footing in England, where the harlequinade, Dr. Faustus, was given at Drury Lane, and was followed by many similar plays. Besides, this pantomime form, consisting solely of a series of dances with musical accompaniment, continued to hold its own. These were known as "ballets" or ballet (q.v.) and reached their highest development under Jean Georges Noverre (q.v.) who, in the i8th century, introduced the same reforms into the art of dancing which C. W. Gluck had introduced into music. He composed elaborate dance-dramas, in which wide use was made of emotional situations. He attempted to restore pantomime proper to the stage as an independent species, by treating mythological subjects seriously in artificial ballets. This attempt, which of course could
not prove permanently successful, met in England also with great applause. Noverre's pantomime or ballet Cupid and Psyche is commended as of very extraordinary merit in the choice and execution of the subject. It seems to have been without words. The writer of the tract states that "very lately the serious panto mime has made a new advance in this country, and has gained establishment in an English theatre"; but he leaves it an open question whether the grand ballet of Medea and Jason (apparently produced a few years earlier, for a burlesque on the subject came out in 1781) was the first complete performance of the kind pro duced in England. He also notes The Death of Captain Cook, adapted from the Parisian stage, as possessing considerable dra matic merit, and exhibiting "a pleasing picture of savage customs and manners." Recent RevivaL—In the 19th century the pantomime very nearly disappeared from the stage owing to the decline in the art of the ballet. It is gratifying to observe that the "new dance" which is being developed mainly in Germany, under the leadership of Rudolf von Laban and Mary Wigman, has revived the art of the pantomime. The new dance-drama (neue Tanzbiihne) founded and directed by Hanns Niedecken-Gebhard has as its main object the cultivation of pantomime in opera. Under the choreographic direction of Kurt Jooss and Jens Keith, it has produced the fantasy Die Brautfahrt and the Tanztragodie and applied Mozart's music for Noverre's Les Petits Riens to a new form of ballet production.
At the Berlin opera house the ballet master, Max Terpis, has pro duced a series of pantomimes on a more important scale. The work at Hanover of the ballet master, Mme. Yvonne Georgi, deserves special notice ; in collaboration with Harald Kreutzberg, she has produced remarkable dances which consciously combine stage-craft and the medium of expression provided by the art of the modern theatre. The ballets by Diaghileff, with their combina tion of the old art of the ballet and the new expressionist dance, are also striking representations of the real pantomime dance.
a general survey see K. F. F. Flogel, Geschichte des Grotesk-Komischen, revised ed. by F. W. Eveling (1867) ; A. Pou gin, Dictionnaire historique et pittoresque du theatre (Paris, 1885). As to the commedia dell' arte, masked comedy in Italy and France. and their influence on French regular comedy, see L. Moland, Moliere et la comedie italienne (2nd ed. Paris, 1867) ; and 0. Driesen's remarkable study, Der Ursprung des Harlekin (Berlin, 1904). As to the German Hanswurst and Hanswurstiaden, see G. Gervinus, Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung, vol. iii. (Leipzig, 1853) ; E. Devrient, Gesch. der deutschen Schauspielkunst, vol. ii. (Leipzig, 1848) ; and as to the Ger man Harlequin, Lessing's Hamburgische Dramaturgie, no. 18 (1767), and the reference there to J. Moser's Harlekin oder V ertheidigung des Grotesk-Komischen (1761). As to English pantomime, see Genest, Account of the English Stage (10 vol. Bath, 1832), especially vol. iii.; Dibdin, Complete History of the Stage (5 vol. London, 1800), espe cially vol. ii., iv. and v. ; Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, ed. R. W. Lowe (2 vol. London, 1889) ; P. Fitzgerald, Life of Garrick (2 vol. London, 1868) ; R. J. Broadbent, A History of Pantomime (1901) ; 0. Bie, Der Tanz (1905) ; H. Niedecken, Jean Georges Noverre, Sein Leben and seine; A. Levinson, J. G. Noverre, Lettres sur la dame (1927). (H. KR.)