Michaela DePrince | |
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Michaela DePrince performing at a 2012 photo shoot for Teen Vogue
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Born |
Mabinty Bangura January 6, 1995 Sierra Leone |
Residence | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
Education | Keystone National High School, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School |
Occupation | Ballet dancer |
Years active | 2012-present |
Home town | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Website | michaeladeprince.com |
Current group | Dutch National Ballet |
Michaela Mabinty DePrince (born Mabinty Bangura, 6 January 1995) is a Sierra Leonean-American ballet dancer. With her adoptive mother, Elaine DePrince, Michaela authored the book Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina. She rose to fame after starring in the documentary First Position in 2011, following her and other young ballet dancers as they prepared to compete at the Youth America Grand Prix. She formerly danced with the Dance Theatre of Harlem as the youngest dancer in the history of the company and currently dances as a soloist for the Dutch National Ballet.
Born as Mabinty Bangura into a Muslim family, she grew up as an orphan in Sierra Leone 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.
In 1999, at age four, she and another girl, Mia, were adopted by Elaine and Charles DePrince, a Jewish couple from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and taken to the United States. The DePrinces have eleven children including Michaela, nine of whom are adopted.
Inspired by a picture she found and kept while in Sierra Leone, DePrince trained as a ballet dancer in the U.S, performing at the Youth America Grand Prix among other competitions. She trained in classical ballet at The Rock School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Concurrent with intense ballet training, DePrince took online classes through Keystone National High School, where she earned her high school diploma.