The family of trailblazing ballerina Michaela Mabinty DePrince is mourning two tragedies after the Boston Ballet soloist and her adoptive mother died just one day apart.
DePrince was born in Sierra Leone, and was adopted by her U.S. mother Elaine in 1999 after she lost both her parents at age three in the country’s civil war. Despite some of her teachers not believing that a Black girl could become a professional ballet dancer, DePrince defied expectations — becoming a principal dancer, or in other words, a prima ballerina at just 17 years old at the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
She went on to dance for the Dutch National Ballet and the Boston Ballet. Offstage, DePrince’s illustrious career includes appearing on Dancing with the Stars and performing in a music video for Beyoncé’s Lemonade. DePrince’s name is often mentioned alongside Misty Copeland’s in discussion of prominent Black ballerinas, according to the New York Times.
What may have been a long career was cut short on Sept. 10, when DePrince died at just age 29. Her death was announced three days later on the dancer’s Instagram page. A cause of death has not been revealed.
“Her life was one defined by grace, purpose, and strength,” the memorial post reads. “Her unwavering commitment to her art, her humanitarian efforts, and her courage in overcoming unimaginable challenges will forever inspire us.”
A day after DePrince died, her mother Elaine died, too.
Family spokesperson Jess Volinski says the two deaths are unconnected and that Elaine died “during a routine procedure in preparation for a surgery” on Sept. 11. In fact, “Elaine did not know of Michaela’s passing at the time of her procedure.”
“The only way we can make sense of the senseless is that Elaine, who had already lost three children many years ago, was by the grace of God spared the pain of experiencing the loss of a fourth child,” Volinksi writes.
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The family is asking for privacy as it mourns the deaths of DePrince and Elaine.
“What the family is going through right now is truly unimaginably painful. Grieving two family members who died within a 24 hour period is tragic and devastating,” Volinski adds.
Elaine died after a period of declining heath due to congenital heart failure, the Times reports. The three children she lost prior to DePrince were three adopted sons who all suffered from hemophilia and died due to complications from HIV. She felt it was her duty to take the boys in because other adoptive parents didn’t want to deal with their medical issues.
DePrince, who was born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone, was adopted by Elaine from an orphanage in Ghana alongside another girl who was also named Mabinty. DePrince was renamed Michaela and her adopted sister was renamed Mia, though both of their middle names are Mabinty.
At the orphanage, she experienced mistreatment and malnourishment, she told the Associated Press in 2012. DePrince suffered from a skin pigmentation disorder that had her labelled “the devil’s child” at the orphanage.
“I lost both my parents, so I was there (the orphanage) for about a year and I wasn’t treated very well because I had vitiligo,” DePrince said. “We were ranked as numbers and number 27 was the least favourite and that was my number, so I got the least amount of food, the least amount of clothes and whatnot.”
She remembered seeing a photo of an American ballet dancer on a magazine page that had blown against the gate of the orphanage during Sierra Leone’s civil war. The image would spark her lifelong passion for dance.
“All I remember is she looked really, really happy,” DePrince told the AP, adding that she wished “to become this exact person.”
She said she saw hope in that photo, “and I ripped the page out and I stuck it in my underwear because I didn’t have any place to put it,” she said.
DePrince’s sister Mia shared a statement after the ballerina’s death, reflecting on their adoption together.
“From the very beginning of our story back in Africa, sleeping on a shared mat in the orphanage, Michaela (Mabinty) and I used to make up our own musical theater plays and act them out. We created our own ballets,” Mia wrote. “When we got adopted, our parents quickly poured into our dreams and arose the beautiful, gracefully strong ballerina that so many of you knew her as today. She was an inspiration.”
In the U.S., Elaine promised DePrince she could attend ballet classes once she learned how to speak English. DePrince’s talent in ballet was quickly noticed, though some teachers didn’t believe it was worth investing in a Black ballet dancer.
When she was around eight, DePrince was told she couldn’t play the lead role of Marie in The Nutcracker because “America’s not ready for a Black girl ballerina,” DePrince told the AP.
“It was terrible,” DePrince said in 2012, “to say that to an eight year old is just devastating.”
When she was nine, a teacher told her mother: “I don’t like to put money into Black dancers because they grow up and end up having big boobs and big hips.”
The discouragement only served to make DePrince more “determined” to be a professional ballerina.
“I’ve been through so much, I know now that I can make it and I can help other kids who have been in really bad situations realize that they can make it too,” she said, adding that dance helped her process the traumatic memories of living through the Sierra Leone civil war.
DePrince is survived by five sisters and two brothers. The family requested that in lieu of flowers, donations could be made to War Child, which is an organization that DePrince was involved with as a War Child Ambassador.
“This work meant the world to her, and your donations will directly help other children who grew up in an environment of armed conflict,” the family statement said.
— With files from The Associated Press
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