Pantomime
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Pantomime (informally, panto), not to be confused with mime, refers to a theatrical genre, traditionally found in Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Ireland, which is usually performed around the Christmas and New Year holiday season.
Pantomime has a long theatrical history in Western culture dating back to classical theatre. It developed partly from the 16th century commedia dell'arte tradition of Italy and other European and British stage traditions, such as 17th-century masques and music hall. An important part of the pantomime, until the late 19th century, was the harlequinade.
Outside Britain, the word "pantomime" is often understood to mean miming, rather than the theatrical form described here.
After the renaissance of classical culture, Roman pantomime was a decisive influence upon modern European concert dance, helping to transform ballet from a mere entertainment, a display of technical virtuosity, into the dramatic ballet d'action. It became an antecedent which, through writers and ballet-masters of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Claude-François Ménestrier (1631–1705), John Weaver (1673–1760), Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810) and Gasparo Angiolini (1731–1803), earned it respectability and attested to the capability of dance to render complex stories and express human emotion.
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