Michaela Mabinty DePrince, a pioneer and inspiration to many in the ballet world, has died at the age of 29, a spokeswoman announced on her Instagram page on Friday. The cause of death has not yet been announced.

“Her life was one of grace, determination and strength,” the caption read. “Her unwavering commitment to her art, her humanitarian efforts and her courage to overcome unimaginable challenges will forever inspire us. She was a beacon of hope to many, showing that despite all obstacles, beauty and greatness can rise from even the darkest places.”

Following the announcement of her death, DePrince’s family released a statement.

“I am truly in shock and deeply saddened. My beautiful sister is no longer here,” wrote her sister Mia DePrince. “From the beginning of our story in Africa, sleeping on a shared mat in the orphanage, Michaela (Mabinty) and I invented and performed our own musicals. We created our own ballets… When we were adopted, our parents quickly fulfilled our dreams and created the beautiful, gracefully strong ballerina that so many of you know her as today. She was an inspiration.”

DePrince was born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone and was placed in an orphanage at age 3 after her parents died in the country’s civil war. At the orphanage, she was abused and malnourished, partly because of her vitiligo, she told the Associated Press in 2012.

“I lost both my parents and so I was there (at the orphanage) for about a year and wasn’t treated very well because I had vitiligo,” she said at the time. “We were sorted by numbers and number 27 was the least popular and that was my number, so I got the least food, the least clothes and so on.”

After learning the orphanage was about to be bombed, DePrince walked miles barefoot to reach a refugee camp. Her adoptive mother, who adopted DePrince and two other girls, including Mia, from the orphanage after meeting them in Ghana in 1999, said Michaela was “sick and traumatized by the war” and had tonsillitis, fever, mononucleosis and swollen joints. DePrince was four when she was adopted and moved to the United States.

Her passion for ballet began when she saw a photo of a ballerina as a young girl in Sierra Leone. But even though DePrince began ballet training at age five, she continued to face obstacles. At age eight, she was told America wasn’t ready for a black ballerina, even though she had been chosen to play the role of Marie in The Nutcracker. At age nine, a teacher told her mother that black girls weren’t worth investing money in.

DePrince eventually attended the Rock School for Dance Education, a prestigious and selective ballet school.

At age 17, she appeared in First Position, a documentary film that follows six dancers as they prepare for the Youth America Grand Prix. She received a scholarship to study at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of Ballet at the American Ballet Theatre. After graduating from high school, DePrince worked at the Dance Theatre of Harlem and became the youngest principal dancer in the theatre’s history.

In 2012, she performed in a professional ballet for the first time in South Africa. The following year, she became a member of the junior company of the Dutch National Ballet.

Viewers unfamiliar with ballet may know DePrince from Beyonce’s “Lemonade,” in which the then 21-year-old dances in an old-fashioned tutu and headdress. In 2021, she became a second soloist with the Boston Ballet. That same year, she played the lead role in “Coppelia,” a ballet film.

At the Boston Ballet, DePrince told reporters how black dancers before her had helped motivate her despite her experiences with racism and xenophobia.

“I’m very lucky,” DePrince said at the time. “There was Lauren Anderson – I had someone to look up to. The Houston Ballet. Heidi Cruz, the Pennsylvania Ballet when I was younger. And Misty Copeland. There aren’t many of us. But I always try to remember and my passion is to spread more poppies in a field of daffodils, so have more black and brown dancers.”

Despite her success, DePrince did not forget her early childhood. She was committed to being a humanitarian and, over the course of her career, expressed her desire to open a school for dance and art in Sierra Leone.

“That would be great – I would love to use the money we make from this book to open the school,” DePrince told the Guardian in 2015. “It will have to be when I stop dancing. The arts can change you as a person. Dancing has helped me share my feelings and connect with my family – it has helped me feel special and not ‘the child of the devil’. These children will not have the same opportunities as I did and I don’t think they deserve that.”

She spent much of her career advocating for and promoting the inclusion of black dancers in ballet.

“There are practically no black people in ballet, so I have to raise my voice,” she told the Guardian.

In lieu of flowers, DePrince’s family has asked people to donate to War Child, an organization supported by DePrince.

“This work meant everything to her and your donations will directly help other children growing up in an environment of armed conflict,” they wrote. “Thank you.”