Michaela DePrince
Sierra Leonean-American ballet dancer (1995–2024)
Michaela Mabinty DePrince (born Mabinty Bangura; January 6, 1995 – September 10, 2024) was a Sierra Leonean–American ballet dancer who danced with the Boston Ballet, the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the Dutch National Ballet.
DePrince rose to fame after starring in the documentary First Position in 2011, which followed her and other young ballet dancers as they prepared to compete at the Youth America Grand Prix, where she won a scholarship to the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre. In 2012, DePrince danced with the Dance Theatre of Harlem as the youngest dancer in the history of the company. From 2013 to 2020, she was with the Dutch National Ballet.
With her adoptive mother, Elaine DePrince, she authored the 2014 book Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina (also published as Hope in a Ballet Shoe). From 2016 to 2024, she was a goodwill ambassador with the Amsterdam-based organization War Child. She died aged 29.
Early life
Born as Mabinty Bangura on January 6, 1995, into a Muslim family in Kenema, Sierra Leone, she grew up as an orphan after her uncle brought her to an orphanage during the civil war. Her adoptive parents were told that her father was shot and killed by the Revolutionary United Front when she was three years old and that her mother starved to death soon after.
Frequently malnourished, mistreated, and derided as a "devil's child" because of vitiligo, a skin condition causing depigmentation, she fled to a refugee camp after her orphanage was bombed.
The public source identifies “Michaela DePrince” as sierra Leonean-American ballet dancer (1995–2024). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Michaela, DePrince and Sierra.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6835591. VIAF identifies the subject as 275483908. The Library of Congress control number is no2012134963. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1995, 2024, 2011 and 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “Michaela DePrince” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.