Sierra Leone-born DePrince, who moved to US as a child, danced with Boston Ballet and performed with Beyoncé

Michaela Mabinty DePrince, a trailblazer and inspiration to many in the ballet world, has died at 29, a spokesperson announced on her Instagram page on Friday. No cause of death has yet been reported.

“Her life was one defined by grace, purpose, and strength,” the caption said. “Her unwavering commitment to her art, her humanitarian efforts, and her courage in overcoming unimaginable challenges will forever inspire us. She stood as a beacon of hope for many, showing that no matter the obstacles, beauty and greatness can rise from the darkest of places.”

DePrince’s family released a statement following the announcement of her death.

“I am truly in a state of shock and deep sadness. My beautiful sister is no longer here,” Mia DePrince wrote. “From the very beginning of our story back in Africa, sleeping on a shared mat in the orphanage, Michaela (Mabinty) and I used to make up our own musical theater plays and act them out. We created our own ballets … When we got adopted, our parents quickly poured into our dreams and arose the beautiful, gracefully strong ballerina that so many of you knew her as today. She was an inspiration.”

Born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone, DePrince was sent to an orphanage aged three, after both of her parents died in the country’s civil war. At the orphanage, she experienced mistreatment and malnourishment, she told the Associated Press in 2012.

“I lost both my parents, so I was there [the orphanage] for about a year and I wasn’t treated very well because I had vitiligo,” she said at the time. “We were ranked as numbers, and number 27 was the least favorite and that was my number, so I got the least amount of food, the least amount of clothes and whatnot.”

After receiving word that the orphanage would be bombed, DePrince described walking shoeless for miles to reach a refugee camp. Her mother, who adopted DePrince and two other girls, including Mia, from the orphanage after meeting them in Ghana in 1999, said Michaela was “sick and traumatized by the war”, with tonsillitis, fever, mononucleosis and swollen joints. DePrince was four when she was adopted and moved to the United States.

Her passion for ballet began as a young girl in Sierra Leone after she saw a photo of a ballerina. But despite beginning to train in ballet at five, DePrince still experienced trials. At eight, she was told the US was not ready for a Black girl ballerina, even though she had been selected to perform the role of Marie in The Nutcracker. When she was nine, a teacher told her mother that Black girls were not worth investing money in.

DePrince eventually attended the Rock School for Dance Education, a prestigious and selective ballet school.

At 17, she was featured in First Position, a documentary that follows six dancers as they prepare for the Youth America Grand Prix. She received a scholarship to study at American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of Ballet. After graduating from high school, DePrince worked at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, becoming the youngest principal dancer in the theatre’s history.

In 2012, she performed in her first professional full ballet in South Africa. The following year, she joined the Dutch National Ballet’s junior company.

Audiences who are unfamiliar with ballet might recognize DePrince from Beyonce’s Lemonade, in which the then 21-year-old dances wearing an old-fashioned tutu and headpiece. In 2021, she joined the Boston Ballet as a second soloist. That year, she performed the leading role in Coppelia, a ballet film.

At the Boston Ballet, DePrince told reporters about how Black dancers who came before her helped motivate her despite experiencing racism and xenophobia.

“I’m very lucky,” DePrince said at the time. “There was Lauren Anderson – I had somebody to look up to. The Houston Ballet. Heidi Cruz, the Pennsylvania Ballet when I was younger. There’s also Misty Copeland. There’s not a lot of us. But what I always try to think about, and what my passion is, is spreading more poppies in a field of daffodils, so to have more Black and brown dancers.”

Even with her successes, DePrince did not forget her early childhood. She became a humanitarian and throughout her career expressed a desire to open a school for dance and the arts in Sierra Leone.

“That would be amazing – I’d like to use the money we earn from this book [a memoir, Hope in a Ballet Shoe] to open the school,” DePrince told the Guardian in 2015. “It’ll have to be when I retire from dancing. The arts can change you as a person. Dancing helped me share my emotions and connect to my family – it helped me feel like I was special and not the ‘devil’s child’. Those kids won’t have the same opportunities I had, and I don’t think they deserve that.”

She spent much of her career advocating for and promoting the inclusion of Black dancers in ballet.

“There are practically no Black people in ballet, so I need to speak out,” she told the Guardian.

In lieu of flowers, DePrince’s family has asked people to donate to War Child, an organization DePrince supported.

“This work meant the world to her, and your donations will directly help other children who grew up in an environment of armed conflict,” they wrote. “Thank you.”