Johaar Mosaval

Johaar Mosaval (born 8 January 1928) is a retired South African ballet dancer who rose to prominence as a principal dancer with England's Royal Ballet.^[1] He was among the first "persons of color" to perform major roles with an internationally known ballet company during the 1960s.^{[2] [3]}

Early life and training

Johaar Mosaval was born in District Six of Cape Town, a lively community made up of former slaves, artisans, merchants, and other immigrants as well as many Cape Malays, descendants of Malay people brought to South Africa by the Dutch East India Company during its administration of the Cape Colony. In the twentieth century, Cape Malays were classified as "Coloured" by the South African government. Like many Cape Malay residents, Mosaval's large family was Muslim, which set them apart from the mainstream population of white Christians and Jews as well as, of course, the black communities of Bantu peoples. When Johaar was a youth, he was noticed by Dulcie Howes, the doyenne of South African theatrical dance, while he was performing gymnastics. She invited him to attend her ballet school at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Despite the disapproval of his Muslim parents and the white ("European") community, Mosaval accepted her invitation and began his dance training at the UCT Ballet School in 1947.^[4] He later explained, "It was the height of apartheid and there was no scope for me. She broke the race barrier by taking me to ballet classes. . . . I had to stand at the back of the class. The white boys in the class would give me sideways glances if I happened to grand jeté myself to the front."^[5] In the classes of Jasmine Honoré, Mosaval advanced quickly, as his strong, flexible physique and iron determination to succeed reinforced his natural facility for classical ballet technique.

South Africa's laws of apartheid ("apartness") prevented Mosaval from pursuing a dance career in his home country, but in 1950 he was noticed by visiting ballet celebrities Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin, who arranged for him to receive a scholarship to attend the Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London. His training there led to his joining the corps of the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1951.

Performing career

In 1956, Mosaval was promoted to soloist in the company, which was soon renamed the Royal Ballet. He became a principal dancer in 1960 and a senior principal in 1965. Mosaval toured extensively with the Royal Ballet, dancing in continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, the Far East, Canada, and the United States as partner to such famous ballerinas as Margot Fonteyn, Svetlana Beriosova, Lynn Seymour, Merle Park, and Nadia Nerina, a fellow South African, in ballets choreographed by Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan, Ninette de Valois, and two South Africans, David Poole and John Cranko.

Noted for his performances as Jasper the Pot Boy in Pineapple Poll and as Bootface in The Lady and the Fool, both choreographed by Cranko, Mosaval was also acclaimed as the Blue Boy in Les Patineurs and as Puck in The Dream, both choreographed by Ashton, as well as the Blue Bird in The Sleeping Beauty. He developed a global reputation as a brilliant character dancer with impeccable technique. One Scottish critic wrote about his performance as Puck in 1967: "Puck seems tailor-made for Johaar Mosaval. His apparent ability to pause in the middle of a stupendous scene makes one think of the similar claim made for Nijinsky."^[6]

Later life

After twenty-five years with the Royal Ballet, Mosaval retired from performing and returned to Cape Town, settling there permanently in 1976. He did make a guest appearance with CAPAB Ballet in the title role of Michel Fokine's Petruskha, thus becoming the first black dancer to perform on the stage of the Nico Malan Opera House. He was also the first black South African to appear on local television. He opened his own ballet school in 1977 and was employed as the first black Inspector of Schools of Ballet under the Administration of Coloured Affairs.^[7] When he discovered that he could share his expertise only with a certain segment of the population, he resigned this position. Subsequently, his school was shut down by apartheid powers when it was discovered to be multiracial. Following the principles of his mentor, Dulcie Howes, Mosaval wanted to share his knowledge and love of ballet with students of all races, so he continued to find ways to dance and to teach.

Honors and awards

In 1975, Mosaval was the first dancer to earn a Professional Dancer's Teaching Diploma at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Then, receipt of a Winston Churchill Award allowed him to travel to New York to study modern dance at the Martha Graham School and jazz dance at the Ailey School. In 1977, Mosaval received a Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal for his services to ballet in the United Kingdom. Other awards came to him in recognition of his contributions to South African arts and culture. For his contribution to the performing arts, he was given the Western Cape Arts, Culture, and Heritage Award in 1999; for exemplary conduct, he received a Premier's Commendation Certificate in 2003; and for lifetime achievement, he was awarded the Cape Tercentenary Foundation's Molteno Gold Medal in 2005. For his contribution to the performing arts, and to uplifting young dancers through his teaching, the City of Cape Town then awarded Mosaval its Civic Honours. It had taken almost three decades of exile and personal, artistic triumph in faraway lands before he was allowed to dance in his own country for his own people.^[8]

References