Michaela DePrince

Birth Name: Mabinty Bangura

Date of Birth: 6 January, 1995

Place of Birth: Kenema, Sierra Leone

Date of Death: September 10, 2024

Place of Death: New York City, New York, U.S.

Ethnicity: Sierra Leonean [Mende]

Michaela DePrince was a Sierra Leonean-American ballet dancer. She appeared in the documentary First Position, about the Youth America Grand Prix; and Beyoncé’s film Lemonade. She was part of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and the Boston Ballet, and was a soloist with the Dutch National Ballet. She was a goodwill ambassador with the Dutch organization War Child.

Michaela was born in Kenema, Sierra Leone, into a Muslim family of the Mende tribe. Her biological parents died during the Sierra Leone Civil War of the 1990s. At the age of four, she was adopted by an American couple, Elaine and Charles DePrince, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The couple had eleven children, nine of them adopted. Michaela and Elaine co-authored the book Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina.

While the DePrince family was described as Jewish on various websites (apparently originating from this statement), both Charles DePrince and Elaine DePrince were/are from Italian-American families. Michaela was also described as a convert to Judaism, a claim for which there appears to be no evidence.

Charles DePrince was the son of Albert E. DePrince and Margaret Catherine DiMuro.

Elaine DePrince was the daughter of Anthony Joseph DiGiacomo and Yolanda Anna Bonitatibus.

Michaela had stated:

The lack of black ballerinas in America is a problem, and I believe that it did hinder me when I auditioned for companies in the United States and Canada. It affected me so seriously that I began to believe that I lacked talent.

Sources: https://www.readbrightly.com

Obituary of Michaela’s adoptive father – https://georgiacremation.com

Obituary of Michaela’s adoptive paternal grandmother, Margaret DePrince – https://www.legacy.com

Obituary of Michaela’s adoptive maternal grandfather, Anthony Joseph DiGiacomo – https://www.findagrave.com