Johaar Mosaval (1929-2023). South African-born dancer and teacher
Johaar Mosaval was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1928, the eldest of ten children to parents of Cape Malay background. His dancing potential was noticed by Dulcie Howes, who enabled him to enter the University of Cape Town Ballet School in 1947. It was while he was a student there that his performance as Dr Coppélius in a production of Coppélia, in which he seemed to transfer Franz’s heart into the doll, apparently inspired Christiaan Barnard, who was in the audience, to pioneer heart transplant surgery. Mosaval’s attendance at the ballet school was technically a flouting of the apartheid regulations then current in South Africa, and there was clearly no career for him as a ballet dancer in the country at that time. In 1950, however, he was noticed by Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin, who were visiting, and they arranged a scholarship for Mosaval to attend the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. In 1951 Mosaval joined the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, rising to principal in 1960. During his career he toured widely with the company (though not to South Africa). Particularly noted as a brilliant character dancer and an exponent of the works of John Cranko and Frederick Ashton, Mosaval partnered many famous ballerinas, including Margot Fonteyn, Svetlana Beriosova, Lynn Seymour, Doreen Wells and Merle Park.
Mosaval retired to his native Cape Town in 1976, opening a school in 1977 and acting as an inspector of ballet training. Although continual trouble with the apartheid authorities led to the cessation of both these activities, Mosaval continued to teach and inspire young dancers in other settings.
Post-apartheid, which came to an end in 1990, Mosaval received many awards in his own country. These included a Premier’s Commendation Certificate in 2003, the Cape Tercentenary Foundation’s Molteno Gold Medal in 2005, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Arts and Culture Trust in 2016. He received the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal for services to ballet in the UK in 1977. Johaar Mosaval died in 2023.