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Michaela DePrince

Michaela DePrince
Michaela DePrince performing at a 2012 photo shoot for Teen Vogue
Born Mabinty Bangura
(1995-01-06) January 6, 1995 (age 22)
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.


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