“She was an inspiration,” she continued. “Whether she was jumping across the stage or getting on a plane and flying to third world countries to teach orphans and children how to dance, she was determined to make all her dreams come true in the arts and dance. Michaela (Mabinty) has left her footprints in the sand and on so many stages around the world. She will be truly missed. I love you, my beautiful butterfly.”

DePrince was very candid about the struggles she faced growing up in an orphanage, where she recounted finding a discarded magazine that would eventually set her on the path to becoming a professional ballerina.

“There was this lady,” she told the BBC in 2012, per the magazine, “standing on her toes, in this pink, beautiful tutu. I’d never seen anything like it before — a costume that popped with glitter on it, with so much beauty. I could just see the beauty in that person and the hope and the love and just everything that I didn’t have.”

As she explained it, she thought to herself, “Wow! This is what I want to be.”