Michaela Mabinty DePrince, who has died aged 29, was beloved in the dance world, and will be truly missed.
She had an extraordinary life. Born in Sierra Leone during the civil war, she lost both her biological parents as a toddler and was subsequently bullied in an orphanage where she was called “devil’s child” because of her vitiligo, a condition that leaves patches of the skin without pigmentation.
It was during her time there that, as she explained in her 2014 book Taking Flight, she saw a magazine with a picture of a ballerina. Something inside her knew in that instant that this was what she wanted to do when she grew up. And it seemed destiny agreed with her. Soon afterwards she was adopted, together with her sister Mia, by an American couple, Elaine and Charles, who fully supported her aspirations.
She became the youngest principal ballerina at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and in 2013 joined the Dutch National Ballet where she was the only dancer of African origin and where she reached the rank of soloist. In 2021 she joined Boston Ballet. Alongside these long-term contracts she travelled the world as a guest artist.
I was fortunate enough to welcome her in 2017 to dance with English National Ballet as Myrtha in Giselle at the London Coliseum. She was a joy to work with, full of energy and hungry to learn. And her incomparable elevation was breathtaking.
But Michaela Mabinty managed to achieve one of the rarest things in the ballet world – she was a dancer who transcended the industry and reached the hearts of a public beyond our artform. Her book rights were purchased for a film to be directed by Madonna and she performed in the Hope sequence of Beyoncé’s Lemonade. She also used her position for the greater good, as a humanitarian and activist, becoming an ambassador for War Child and enacting change through her many inspirational conferences.
The ballet world is poorer today without her – to say I am heartbroken is an understatement – but her legacy lives on in the thousands she inspired.