Michaela Mabinty DePrince, a pioneer and inspiration to many in the ballet world, has died at the age of 29, a spokesperson announced on her Instagram page Friday. No cause of death has been reported.

“Her life was marked by grace, purpose and strength,” the caption reads. “Her unwavering dedication 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 no matter the obstacles, beauty and greatness can rise from the darkest places.”

DePrince’s family released a statement after her death was announced.

“I am truly in shock and heartbroken. My beautiful sister is gone,” wrote Mia DePrince, her sister. “From the beginning of our story in Africa, sleeping on a shared mat at the orphanage, Michaela (Mabinty) and I would dream up and act out our own musical plays. We would create our own ballets… When we were adopted, our parents quickly embraced our dreams and she became the beautiful, graceful, strong ballerina many of you know her as today. She was an inspiration.”

DePrince was born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone and was sent to an orphanage at age 3 after both 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, so I was there (in the orphanage) for about a year and I wasn’t treated very well because I had vitiligo,” she said at the time. “We were ranked as numbers, and number 27 was the least favorite and that was my number, so I got the least amount of food, the least amount of clothing and all that.”

After learning that the orphanage was going to be bombed, DePrince described walking 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,” with tonsillitis, fevers, mononucleosis and swollen joints. DePrince was 4 when she was adopted and moved to the United States.

Her passion for ballet began as a young girl in Sierra Leone after seeing a photo of a ballerina. But despite starting ballet at age five, DePrince still faced trials. At age eight, she was told that America wasn’t ready for a black ballerina, even though she had been selected 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 17, she appeared in First Position, a documentary that follows six dancers as they prepare for the Youth America Grand Prix. She was awarded a scholarship to study at the American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of Ballet. After graduating from high school, DePrince worked at the Dance Theatre of Harlem, where she became the youngest principal dancer in the theater’s history.

In 2012 she performed in her first professional full ballet in South Africa. The following year she joined the junior company of the Dutch National Ballet.

Audiences unfamiliar with ballet might recognize DePrince from Beyonce’s Lemonade, in which the then 21-year-old danced in an old-fashioned tutu and headdress. In 2021, she joined the Boston Ballet as a soloist. That year, she played the lead role in a ballet film called Coppelia.

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

“I’ve been very fortunate,” 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 then there’s Misty Copeland. There’s not a lot of us. But what I always try to think about, and what I’m passionate about, is putting more poppies in a field of daffodils, so there’s more black and brown dancers.”

Despite her successes, DePrince did not forget her early childhood. She became a humanitarian and throughout her career expressed the desire to open a school for dance and art in Sierra Leone.

“That would be great – I would like to use the money we make from this book to open the school,” DePrince told the Guardian in 2015. “That will have to happen after I retire from dancing. The arts can change you as a person. Dancing helped me share my emotions and connect with my family – it helped me feel special and not the ‘child of the devil’. Those kids are not going to have the same opportunities that I did, and I don’t think they deserve it.”

For much of her career, she has advocated for and promoted the participation of black dancers in ballet.

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

In lieu of flowers, DePrince’s family is asking people to make a donation to War Child, an organization that DePrince supports.

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