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Professional ballet dancer Michaela DePrince saw a ballerina for the first time when she found a magazine cover with a female ballet dancer near the gate of the orphanage where she was living in Sierra Leone. At that time， she was just three years old.
The image of the beautiful and happy ballerina fascinated the young orphan， who had just lost both of her parents in the Sierra Leone's brutal civil war from 1991 to 2002.
At the time， DePrince -- or Mabinty Bangura as she was then called -- didn’t know that the woman was a ballerina. But she was dreaming of one day becoming as happy as the ballerina on the magazine cover.
"It represented freedom， it represented hope， it represented trying to live a little longer，" she recalls. "I was so upset in the orphanage， I have no idea how I got through it but seeing that， it completely saved me."
Later， DePrince was adopted by an American couple at the age of four and began a new life in the United States. Today， at the age of 17， she is one of the ballet world's rising stars -- last month she traveled to South Africa to make her professional debut in Johannesburg.
"I worked very hard and I was en pointe by the time I was seven years old，" says DePrince. "I was so determined to be like that person on the magazine and she was what drove me to become a better dancer， a better person -- to be just like her was what I wanted to be."
At the age of 13， DePrince earned a full scholarship to the prestigious American Ballet Theater's summer intensive in New York.
A year later she took part in the youth America Grand Prix， the biggest ballet competition in the world， where she won a full scholarship to ABT's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Despite graced with talent and strength， DePrince constantly encounters racial discrimination in the rarefied world of ballet dancing -- a predominantly white preserve.
She says she almost quit dancing when she was 10 years old after because a teacher told her mother that black dancers weren't worth investing money in as “they just get fat and get big boobs and big thighs."
But those words only make DePrince even more determined to become a professional ballet dancer. In July 2012， she travelled to South Africa and made her professional debut performance in the role of Gulnare.
DePrince says she'd like to start an art school in Sierra Leone and use her story to encourage other girls on the continent that if they have a dream they can definitely achieve it.
"Even though you might have had a terrible past and even though you might have been through a lot and might be still going through a lot， if you have something that you love and that makes you happy and that gives you that feeling inside to continue growing up and that makes you want to have a good future then you should focus on that and not focus on the negative."
米凯拉·德普林斯经历过战火中父母的生离死别， 经历过孤儿院生活，她也曾因自己的肤色遭到过芭蕾舞老师的否定，但是她始终没有放弃自己的梦想。如今，她成为了芭蕾舞世界里的一颗新星。
The image of the beautiful and happy ballerina fascinated the young orphan， who had just lost both of her parents in the Sierra Leone's brutal civil war from 1991 to 2002.
At the time， DePrince -- or Mabinty Bangura as she was then called -- didn’t know that the woman was a ballerina. But she was dreaming of one day becoming as happy as the ballerina on the magazine cover.
"It represented freedom， it represented hope， it represented trying to live a little longer，" she recalls. "I was so upset in the orphanage， I have no idea how I got through it but seeing that， it completely saved me."
Later， DePrince was adopted by an American couple at the age of four and began a new life in the United States. Today， at the age of 17， she is one of the ballet world's rising stars -- last month she traveled to South Africa to make her professional debut in Johannesburg.
"I worked very hard and I was en pointe by the time I was seven years old，" says DePrince. "I was so determined to be like that person on the magazine and she was what drove me to become a better dancer， a better person -- to be just like her was what I wanted to be."
At the age of 13， DePrince earned a full scholarship to the prestigious American Ballet Theater's summer intensive in New York.
A year later she took part in the youth America Grand Prix， the biggest ballet competition in the world， where she won a full scholarship to ABT's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Despite graced with talent and strength， DePrince constantly encounters racial discrimination in the rarefied world of ballet dancing -- a predominantly white preserve.
She says she almost quit dancing when she was 10 years old after because a teacher told her mother that black dancers weren't worth investing money in as “they just get fat and get big boobs and big thighs."
But those words only make DePrince even more determined to become a professional ballet dancer. In July 2012， she travelled to South Africa and made her professional debut performance in the role of Gulnare.
DePrince says she'd like to start an art school in Sierra Leone and use her story to encourage other girls on the continent that if they have a dream they can definitely achieve it.
"Even though you might have had a terrible past and even though you might have been through a lot and might be still going through a lot， if you have something that you love and that makes you happy and that gives you that feeling inside to continue growing up and that makes you want to have a good future then you should focus on that and not focus on the negative."
米凯拉·德普林斯经历过战火中父母的生离死别， 经历过孤儿院生活，她也曾因自己的肤色遭到过芭蕾舞老师的否定，但是她始终没有放弃自己的梦想。如今，她成为了芭蕾舞世界里的一颗新星。