Birthdate: November 20, 1970
Ivan Peter Dudynsky, a native from Minneapolis, Minnesota, played soccer before becoming interested in dancing. At the age of eight, his father thought it would be a good idea for him to be involved in dancing because of good coordination and flexibility. He began dancing almost immediately afterward, taking lessons in tap, street, break, ballet and more. An excellent dancer from the beginning, he participated on Jr. Star Search in 1986 at age fifteen and won first place!
At eighteen, Ivan was offered a dance scholarship to Tremain Dance Studios in Hollywood. He accepted, and four days after he graduated high school, he and his family moved to California. He began touring with Tremaine and teaching tap dance and hip hop. He later began touring with the bands P.M. Dawn and Color Me Badd, then with industrial shows for Reebok, Hobie, Body Glove, Ocean Pacific, Avia and many others. This later led to TV auditions and guest spots in commercials. In 1991, he landed a guest spot on the short-lived NBC show, Hull High, where he met Mark David. The two became best friends.
Ivan later assisted in choreographing the movie Encino Man, and even appeared in the movie as a student (seen walking behind Sean Astin near the beginning of the movie). Afterward, he and Mark were cast in the Disney movie, Newsies; both playing bespectacled newsies, Dutchy and Specs. Ivan was also featured shortly in the “Making of Newsies” special. After Newsies, both Ivan, Mark, and two other actors from Newsies, David Sidoni and Dominic Lucero, were cast in the Nickelodeon TV show, Roundhouse. He was one of the main dancers throughout most of the show, and when Dominic left the show due to cancer, Ivan was normally cast as the boy “Anykid” for the rest of the show.
During the show, Ivan hosted an MTV Top 20 countdown and Slime Time Live in 1993. He hosted Slime Time in 1994 again, and SNICK Live, and danced on the 6th and 7th annual Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards. He was shortly interviewed on Entertainment Tonight, choreographed ten episodes of Roundhouse (School Daze, TV on Trial, Politics, Economy, Fear, Best Friends, Money, Prejudice, Growing Up, and Stress & Success), had his own profile commercial on Nick, profiled in Bop magazine, and pointed out by Entertainment Weekly as a *star* in the making! Roundhouse lasted till November of 1994, and after its cancellation, Ivan began choreographing again.
He appeared in a number of commercials, mainly for Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Panasonic, M&Ms, Du Pont, McDonald’s, Pringles, Mountain Dew and Fleet Bank. He choreographed for artists such as Angel, Chayanne, Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul and Alanis Morisette. He also began working behind the scenes as a cinematographer for Michael Jackson’s “Blood on the Dance Floor” video (with Kevin Stea from Newsies), doing Jasmine Guy’s “Try Me” video, assisting the choreography for the 1996 Academy Awards, producing and designing graphics for the American Latino Media Arts Awards, doing the photography for Roundhouse lead guitarist Marty Walsh’s album, choreographing Lance Burton’s magic show and appearing in the 1996 Superbowl with Diana Ross during the halftime show.
He later began to work with then unknown pop sensation ‘N Sync as both choreographer and “massage boy,” touring with them throughout Florida and Europe. He also did some choreographing for Grammy award winning pop princess, Christina Aguilera. Later, he began producing and editing MTV Biorhythms, including ones for Drew Barrymore and Jim Carrey.
Most recently, Ivan and Mark have been working with Farmclub.com, a website complete with a TV show giving spotlight to signed and unsigned bands, aired on the USA network. They both produced and edited episodes of the show. They left the show, and Ivan went to do some work with contemporary Christian boy band Plus One as the director of photography for their home video (WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!!! GO IVAN!!!!!!).
On September 15, 2001, he married Audrey Morrisey, and in the same year he directed some of the productions for the Academy Award winning film, Moulin Rogue, starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. He also worked as an editor for the film Threnody and edited several episodes of MTV's Jammed and the 2003 TV movie Anna Netrebko: The Woman, The Voice.
Ivan Peter Dudynsky: Sexiest Man Alive
Skater’s Shrine to Ivan Dudynsky
Ivan the Great
Ivan in Aeternum
Ivan, Newsies and Roundhouse
Ivan Shrine
Larger than Life’s interview with Ivan
The Producer Says…
CONTACT
Ivan Dudynsky
c/o Tremaine Dance Conventions
14531 Hamlin Street, #104
Van Nuys, CA 91411
Know Your Newsies!
Miscellaneous
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