Theatre Studies
“Pantomime” is most often translated as “an imitator of all/everything”. The word has its roots in the theatrical tradition, and specifically originates from the Latin (ultimately Greek) panto-, meaning “all”, and mimos,Footnote 1 referring to a “nonspeaking” performer who took on all the roles in a play and acted them out relying on masks, props and rhythmic movement.Footnote 2 In Antiquity, this was synonymous with the performance of “a dancer” (cf. Slater 1994), who illustrated the tragic myths. Calling for great athletic ability, it resembled sports more than arts: it involved boxing and wrestling moves, high jumping, or somersaults (wasting the performers' energy, cf. Barba 1995: 15). Later on, this athletic repertoire of pantomimi was widened, as pantomime became an increasingly comical form, relying on mannerisms and exaggerations, which required the utmost precision of facial expression and gesturing (cf. Slater 1994).
In theatre studies, pantomime has thus been conceived of as a form of acting with the body; however, ideologically, it is not “a theatre where the actor does not speak, [it] is theatre where the actor’s body does speak” (Lecoq in Peacock 2007: 217). In this sense, pantomime is a means of expression rather than a given—conventionalised—theatrical form. Lecoq, one of the most influential mime theorists and teachers, offered something of a prescriptive definition of thus understood pantomime, which, in his opinion, should be based on “corporal impression” and involve only “primal vocal sounds”, being a “silent portrayal of real-life physical activity” (Lecoq in Peacock 2007: 217). Such an approach seems close to Decroux’s corporeal mime or Stanislavsky’s form of physical theatre, in which the movements of the performer should arise “genuinely” or “organically” in the course of improvisation (cf. Fleshman 2012: 206, Toporkov 2004: 159). It is worth noting that in these contexts, pantomime—though understood primarily as a dramatic form—is most often defined simply as “communicating through the use of gesture and movement rather than words”, relying on “the visual and tactile channels of expression” (Peterson Royce 1992: 191).
Pantomime, understood as a form of a performance, has in general acquired a status of popular entertainment,Footnote 3 and thus the term has been used rather reluctantly by theatre practitioners such as Stanislavsky or Grotowski, even though it is very close to what they called “physical actions” (cf. Spatz 2015: 139). The popular character of pantomime is also reflected in the interest that anthropological, ethnological and folklore studies take in the subject. In Bauman’s edited volume on folk and popular entertainment forms, “mime” is listed alongside gossip, folktale, oral poetry, and ritual (1992). It is also present in almost every intra-cultural analysis of folklore of a given group or place: from Asia (e.g. Goonatilleka 1970, Lopez 2006), to Africa (Kerr 2005), to the Americas (Brunvand 1968). In Africa, for instance, mime has often been a way of combining the pre-colonial indigenous heritage of particular regions, usually in the form of original ritualistic dance, with parodying the colonial culture (Kerr 1995: 59–60). One of the most interesting forms is “militaristic mime”. Kerr describes the Beni dance, which can be read as a parody of an army parade: the dancers, dressed in semi-military outfits, march in columns and mirror the behaviour of the European colonisers, using props that stand for rifles or batons (1995: 60). Another example is the Chama dance, in which the participants imitate an indigenous Arab sword combat, using sticks as props (1995: 60). These forms have a clear resemblance to the performances of the pantomimi of Ancient Greece and Rome: in one way or another they refer to fighting and require the military precision of movement.
Interestingly, “pantomime” also has an alternative etymology: for example, according to Broadbent (1901), it means “an imitator of Pan”, the Ancient deity associated with Arcadia, and thus nature. In this sense, “pantomime” denotes “imitating nature”, and connotes mimicry. This corresponds to the definitions of “expressive” pantomime that were provided in the twentieth century, stressing the connection of pantomime and imitation inherent in human nature. Lecoq, for instance, draws an analogy between miming and yawning, both of which are uncontrollable and catching (2006: 1–3). He seeks the roots of the drive to imitate and mimic also in the instances of copying gestures, postures, or behaviours of others that we are interacting with socially (2006: 3). The connection of mime and mimicry has also been observed by Broadbent; he uses the term [mimicry] in his History of Pantomime of 1901, where he writes that it is “the Pantomime of Nature, […] which each and every one of us possesses in greater or lesser degrees, and as much as we do the Dramatic instinct” (1901: 14). By that, Broadbent points to the universal nature of pantomime, but also voices the intuition that the inclination towards using pantomime is inborn in humans; he refers, for instance, to Bernardin de St. Pierre, who observed that “[pantomime] was the first language of man; it is known to all nations; and is so natural and so expressive that the children of white parents learn it rapidly when they see it used by the negroes” (de St. Pierre 1788 in Broadbent 1901: 15). Still, Lecoq rightly states that mime is not synonymous with mimicry: it is not just mere imitation, but a way of “grasping the real”, communicating something about it (cf. Lecoq 2006: 3). Another theatre theorist, Lust, calls pantomime “a language of gestures” (2003: 19; also—Lecoq 2006: 6), and she intuitively seeks its origins in pre-speech and its function in aiding verbal communication: “Before the human voice developed, gestures served not only to communicate but to aid in the development of vocal sounds. Later they were incorporated in the first forms of written language of, for example, the Egyptians, the Aztecs, and in the pictographic writings of the Hebrews” (2003: 20).
Gesture Studies
In terms of kinesiological or gestural research, the greatest effort to characterise pantomime was made by McNeill, who included it in his influential classification of gestural behaviours designated as Kendon’s continuum (renamed as the “gesture continuum”, at Kendon’s request; cf. McNeill 2013):
Gesticulation—Language-like Gestures—Pantomime—Emblems—Sign Languages (1992).
There are a number of parameters that dictate the organisation of the gesture continuum (or later, gesture continua, cf. 2005), but it is the relation of a particular gestural type to speech that is crucial to McNeill’s classificatory enterprise: as explained above, gesticulations are defined by their close relation to spoken language, emblems are characterised by its optional presence, while pantomime and sign language are necessarily produced in the absence of speech (2005).
McNeill is not verbose about the details of pantomimic communication—“[p]antomime is difficult to define, but generally it means a significant gesture without speech, a dumb show” (2005: 2). The examples given, e.g. twirling the finger around in a circle to stand for a vortex (2005), make it similar to gesticulations in the sense that pantomimes are non-conventional and spontaneous communicative movements (in contrast to emblems and signs). McNeill concedes that pantomimes are often elaborate, complex and potentially sequentially structured (2008, 2013), and that they must holistically refer to events, although he does not press this last point—it is principally the obligatory absence of speech and/or relation to linguistic utterances (as in the case of “language-slotted gestures”, 2005) that distinguishes pantomime from gesticulation.Footnote 4
Importantly for our purposes, McNeill is a vehement opponent of the view that language evolved from pantomime, advanced by Arbib (e.g. 2012) or Tomasello (2008). For him, the defining feature of linguistic communication and indeed the evolutionary continuity in language evolution is the co-expressiveness of gesture and speech (1992, 2005, 2013). Using the notion of “growth point”, i.e. the psychological predicate of an utterance (loosely derived from Vygotsky 1962; McNeill 1992), he strives to show that linguistic communication rests on the scaffolding of gestures and lexemes, working together in meaning-making. This leads him to embracing the view of language as an essentially multimodal, or rather bi-modal, form of communication.
No researcher in gesture studies has devoted so much attention to pantomime as McNeill. Kendon (2004: 160) lists pantomime as one of three basic techniques of representation in gesturing; pantomime is the same as enactment, and is distinct from modelling and depiction in being action-oriented, i.e. tracing a pattern of action. Along similar lines, Sandler (2009) distinguishes pantomime from iconic signs or gestures: she proposes that iconic gestures refer symbolically by highlighting a salient feature of an object (e.g. the hands re-create the oval shape to indicate an egg), while pantomimes are action-oriented and consist in producing a mimetic replica of an action pattern (in the egg example, the hands can mime the action of breaking an egg and throwing away the shell). Streeck refers to mime as a form of performance related to “bodily quotations” or “enactments” that we engage in during social interactions in order to indicate our emotional states (2002: 591). Poggi (2007), in addition to their action-oriented iconicity, underscores the creative and novel aspect of pantomimes: they are absent from the mental “gestural lexicon” and need to be created on the spot. Pantomime is quite symptomatically absent from Ekman and Friesen’s influential typology of non-verbal behaviours (1969).
Finally, an influential paradigm initiated by Goldin-Meadow are laboratory studies on natural word-order in nonlinguistic representation of events; there, “elicited pantomime” is sometimes used to refer to enacting simple transitive events, such as a man pushing a box (e.g. Hall et al. 2013). Importantly, all the major studies in this line of research rely on a seated design that keeps the participants stationary and prevents them from using their whole bodies (Goldin-Meadow et al. 2008; Meir et al. 2010; Gibson et al. 2013; Hall et al. 2013); in effect, the type of communication studied there is impromptu manual communication (see below “silent gesture”).
To sum up, the term “pantomime” in gesture studies functions in a rather broad variety of ways, motivated both by formal classifications of nonverbal behaviours and by the colloquial use of the word. McNeill’s usage probably comes closest to being a stable technical term, but even leading authorities on gesture frequently move back and forth between the more technical and more intuitive meanings of “pantomime”.
Semiotics
Several lines of research underscore pantomime’s rich potential for carrying meanings. Thus, in traditional semiotics, pantomime is understood as a “nonverbal text” endowed with its own “grammar” (see e.g. De Marinis describing Decroux’s changes in “his new grammar of physical mime”, 1993: 125). In terms of the semiotics of performance in particular, pantomime is placed alongside gestures and movements, often in the company of dance or music (e.g. De Marinis 1993: 72, 79, 178). Much attention has also been given to the reading of the meaning of props used in pantomime (e.g. Wyles 2008, focusing on a semiotic—specifically, symbolic—analysis of costumes). This is different from the perspective of Experimental Semiotics, a subfield closely related to language evolution research, where pantomime has been used with an intuitive meaning closely overlapping “silent gesture” (e.g. Fay et al. 2013; 2014; Schouwstra 2012; Schouwstra and de Swart 2014)—i.e. silent, iconic depictions of individual concepts by means of one’s hands and arms. Just like “elicited pantomime”, silent gesture is visual, nonconventional, manual, segmental and simple. As such it has been associated with sign languages as a potential starting point in the evolution of this communication system (see e.g.: Roberts et al. 2015).
Therapeutical Aspects
Spontaneous miming not restricted by any syntax is often prescribed in teaching dyslexic people. Teachers’ guides instruct, for instance, to: “mime something in the manner of the word (e.g. <run quickly>) and have the children find the right adverb”, “have them [the children] mime the activity in the manner of the adverb while the other children guess the activity and the adverb” (Borwick 1999: 51), “[m]ime a particular nursery rhyme or incident and encourage the children to guess the mime. They can then choose something to mime in return” (Augur 1994: 153), or simply use mime in order to express ideas and emotions (Eadon 2005). Similarly, communicative body movements are used in psychotherapy; e.g. Dynamic Play Therapy combines body movements and narration in sessions for children with Hyperactivity or Attention Deficit Disorder (e.g. Harvey 2010); there are also techniques in Gestalt Therapy consisting in the exaggeration of communicative body movements to increase body awareness, which are used in a variety of affective disorders (e.g. Oaklander 1994).
In this sense, pantomime is synonymous with spontaneous gesturing, including both manual representations as well as whole-body enacting, aimed at conveying meanings that are usually conveyed through words. Its aim in therapy is either to provoke a guessing game that can aid the acquisition of new verbal semiotic resources, or to substitute verbal communication. Such an intuition underlies, for instance, the use of Makaton, the multimodal system of signs based mostly on iconicity that are either gestured or presented graphically. Some of the signs include combined gestures-icons, such as a hand’s downward-upward movement, imitating picking something up, and putting it into one’s mouth to designate the verb “to eat”. Gesture combinations often accompany and aid speech in individuals with autism, cognitive and physical disabilities, or Down syndrome, whose verbal communication is restricted for a variety of reasons (see e.g. Grove and Walker 1990). Autistic people in particular rely in communication on mime signing or the so called kinaesthetic language. Mime signs mostly involve hand movements based on imitation, in the absence of speech, and, unlike sign language, they are not conventionalised. Kinaesthetic signing, in turn, often incorporates the whole of the body and aids translating words. For instance, the signing of the lexeme “jump” is accompanied by the performance of an actual jump (Bogdashina 2005: 232).
The robustness of pantomime as a surrogate form of communication is testified to by the universality of pantomimic charades, found across times and cultures (Bellew 2011). Recently, this form of entertainment has received growing attention from various specialists, such as educators (Hidayati 2016) or therapists (Kaduson and Schaefer 2010), while the communicative potential of pantomime has been put to test in a variety of controlled assignment tasks, which can be as complex as designing a software system (Pavlov and Yatsenko 2005).
Narratology
Pantomime has been recognised not only as a means of communication, but also specifically as a medium for narrating. Abbott defines narrative and narrativity as “the representation of an event or a series of events”, where “representation” is understood as any medium or modality, from a verbal and written work of literature, through an anecdote told in a casual conversation, to stories narrated not with words but with, for instance, gestures (2008: 13). In this sense, for narratologists, inspired by the intuitions of Jameson, Lyotard, or Barthes, a narrative is, next to language, a universal and uniquely human ability (Abbott 2008: 1–2).
Accordingly, pantomime seems to fit into the category of “a narrative medium”. Peterson Royce states that it “is characterized by the features of narrative, time and space, an impulse and weight” (1992: 191). Although the intuition seems correct, in narratology gesturing and pantomime are most often seen as language-dependent media. In other words, they are viewed as suitable only for a limited repertoire of event sequences or stories, as they resolve in real time, from one gesture or movement to another, one by one—they cannot be re-arranged into flashbacks or flashforwards, nor represent anachronisms that are an indispensable part of narrating (cf. Genette 1980, 2002; Ryan 2012). Also, it has been claimed that pantomime can be successful in conveying a story only insofar as it relies on verbal aid: a (recognisable) title, libretto or programme (Ryan 2012). Indeed, in some pantomimic forms a libretto has been a part of the performance (in Antiquity sung by a chorus, now printed), but this seems true only in some cases of Western culture; with respect to the indigenous pantomime performances mentioned above, there is no evidence of incorporating any verbal aid.
Primatology
Of particular relevance to language origins research is the status of pantomime in our primate—especially ape—cousins. For a bona fide pantomimic model of language origins to stand, pantomime must be uniquely human, or at least human pantomime must be qualitatively different from any ape manifestations (cf. Tomasello 2008; Arbib 2012). In this context, it is interesting that despite a considerable body of research into primate gesture, only isolated systematic reports exist of iconicity in nonhuman apes (Tanner and Byrne 1996)—although motivational factors rather than cognitive limitations may be the reason (Genty and Zuberbühler 2015). This leads sceptics to suspect that the iconicity is only apparent and derives from “simpler” associative processes developing over ontogeny rather than from the cognitive processing of the iconic aspect of the signal (see Perlman et al. 2014 for review).
Consequently, the equally scarce available reports of pantomime in apes tend to assume a “leaner” rather than richer understanding of this notion: communicatively “demonstrating a particular action, usually to get a partner to perform that action or to request an associated object” (Perlman et al 2014: 230). Examples mostly come from enculturated apes, with the exception of a “form of pantomime” that is “potentially iconic” and consists in communication via demonstrating a sexual action, found in wild female bonobos (Douglas and Moscovice 2015). Worth noting is that reports of iconic gestures or pantomimes in non-human apes often demonstrate the multimodal character of such actions (viz. tactile gestures in Tanner and Byrne 1996) and the involvement of the whole body, e.g. in hip shimmies described by Douglas and Moscovice or hip shaking performed by bonobo mothers to invite the offspring for a ventral carry (Rossano 2013).
An intriguing exception are two works on forest-living orangutans by Russon and Andrews (2010, 2011). These reports adhere to an impressively rich understanding of pantomime: “gesture in which meaning is acted out; in humans, it can be as simple as twirling a finger to indicate a vortex or as complex as telling the Ramayana. It can be representational, symbolic, narrative in form and fictional […] It can communicate meaning with sentential structure…” (Russon and Andrews 2010). The instances of pantomime identified in orangutans are described as productive, compositional, systematic, and triadically communicative (Russon and Andrews 2011) as well as multimodal, reenactive of past events, and communicatively versatile rather than tied to a particular function (Russon and Andrews 2010). However, no other non-anecdotal reports exist of ape behaviour meeting or approximating such “richer” criteria for pantomime. In sum, Zuberbühler’s (2013: 136) conclusion appears to be largely accurate: “[in apes], pantomiming is conspicuously absent, apart from isolated anecdotes”.
Neuroscience
Research on pantomime has been a long-standing element of neuroscience, with pantomimes being e.g. standard diagnostic tools for apraxia (Heilman et al. 1982; De Renzi et al. 1982; De Renzi and Faglioni 1999). However, following the tradition traced back to Hughlings Jackson (1893), pantomime has come to be understood in a very specific, and indeed very limited sense, qua imitating a simple action, i.e. execution of the relevant motor sequence in the absence of its instrumental goal, and in the absence of its object for transitive actions. Most typically, this action is pretend tool use, such as the use of (an imaginary) hammer or paintbrush, and can be glossed by a single verb or at most a simple verb phrase. It is based on a diagnostically important assumption that tool miming is related to motor programmes that are independent of any environmental features and are only conditioned by the characteristics of the mimed objects and activities; this is taken to contrast with gestures representing intransitive actions (e.g. hitchhiking), which are more dependent on social-cultural information and hence on the lexicon (for discussion see Bartolo et al. 2003). Standard studies in this paradigm focus on both the performance of pantomimes (e.g. Dumont et al. 1999), as defined above, and their comprehension (e.g. Rothi et al. 1985). Authors such as Feyereisen (1999) distinguish pantomime from imitation: pantomimes are elicited by verbal commands and imitation is elicited by the participant observing someone else execute the action.
With the expansion of neuroscience and advancement of scanning and imaging techniques in the 1990s, research on pantomime began to cover more and more thematic areas, some of them of great interest to language evolution, such as activation patterns induced by observing pantomime and signs of a sign language (Emmorey et al. 2010). However, this change of interest has not yet borne on a use of the term “pantomime” that is accepted in neuroscience.