The South African ballet dancer Johaar Mosaval, who has died aged 95, was the first dancer of colour to join the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, in London, later to become the Royal Ballet. As well as abundant natural talent, he demonstrated resilience and determination against the odds, as a black, Muslim boy from a poor family, wanting to make a career in dance. He joined the company in 1952 and danced with them for more than two decades, rising to principal after six years.
Mosaval delighted audiences with his speed, personality and fast-footed technique, in roles including the Blue Boy in Frederick Ashton’s Les Patineurs, the can-can dancer in Léonid Massine’s La Boutique Fantasque and the Bluebird in Sleeping Beauty. In Ashton’s The Dream he made “the most captivating and dazzling” Puck, wrote James Kennedy in the Guardian in 1967.
