Monday through Saturday, Ivan Mulyavk wakes up at 6 a.m., helps dress and feed his kids, and is out the door heading to Dance Town Miami in Doral for a day full of teaching dance to students of all ages.
Mulyavk, 40, has been doing Latin ballroom for 30 years. Along the way, he’s won plenty of prestigious awards and earned a spot as one of the best professionals in the style.
Mulyavk trained in all styles, including ballet and jazz, at Dance Sports Club Ufa in Russia. He chose Latin ballroom because he loved the music.
“It was purely my decision to dance, and when I fell in love with it, my dreams never strayed from Latin ballroom,” he said.
He grew up in the former Soviet Union and was just 10 years old when he set foot in a dance studio for the first time.
“The late ‘90s and 2000s were a very tough time for the country, so my teen years raised me into the type of person I am today,” he said.
Mulyavk’s father was a school principal while his mother was a seamstress.
“My family didn’t have a lot of money, but in Russia most things like education and after-school sports were government-funded, so I would take advantage of these opportunities,” he said.
He never thought dance was in the cards for him.
“One day, one of my classmates invited me to be her ballroom partner in a dance club,” he said.
“What Americans typically call dance studios or academies, are dance clubs there,” he said. “Of course, I said ‘no’ because dancing is not for boys, but she bothered me so much that I told her ‘Okay, I’ll go with you once, and if I don’t like it, you need to stop bothering me’.”
He went once and stayed forever.
At his first dance competition in Ufa, about 800 miles from Moscow, he competed in Latin ballroom and won third place.
At his second, he was in last place.
Both competitions were motivation for him.
“At 16, I knew I wanted to do exactly what I do today – become a professional Latin ballroom dancer who travels and teaches everywhere and everyone,” he said.
Since then, he became the #12 Latin ballroom professional in the world.
His dance instructors and owners of Dance Sports Club Ufa, Khaziev Albert Fanisovich and Razida Fridovna, became second parents to Mulyavk.
“They showed their pride in my dance career through action rather than words, like true Russian character,” Mulyavk said.
He moved to the US at 22 in 2008.
Mulyavk immigrated to Sacramento, Calif., at 22 where he tried to find more opportunities in dance.
He moved to Miami in 2012.
“I didn’t move to Miami just because I wanted to, it was always a decision of whether or not it’s good for my dancing,” he said.
Arina Kachanova, 39, has trained with Mulyavk since she moved to Miami in 2022.
Of the many options, she chose Dance Town because he teaches there with his wife Karin Rooba, and they already had an impressive reputation in the ballroom dance community.
“Since Ivan is mostly recognized as a Latin dancer, I’ve been taking only Latin classes and I love it way more now,” she said. “It’s hard to choose just one favorite memory with Ivan, but over time, all of these moments together have become very meaningful memories that I truly value.”
Unlike many ballroom love stories, Mulyavk and Rooba, now 42, started dating before they became dance partners.
Mulyavk was in Miami while Rooba was dancing with a different partner in Hong Kong, so the two had a long-distance for a while– until Rooba joined him in South Florida.
“We thought since were already dating and living together, why not just dance together too?” he said.
Rooba grew up in Estonia where she started dancing at 6, and her dance career fits nicely with Mulyavk’s.
“When I reached the top in Estonia, I decided to move abroad and continue my dance career first in Russia, then in Italy and Hong Kong,” she said.
Since then, the two worked together at Dance Town as instructors and partners.
The couple started a family, Nikolas, 3, Elissa, 6 months, and their dance goals slowly transformed.
“Since my kids are still very young, I’m spending less time at the studio and more time at home with them,” Rooba said.
The two still had their difficulties as a couple and as dance partners.
“Even though we had arguments here and there during our practices, we were able to let that go at home, and that’s one of the reasons why our partnership works so well,” Mulyavk said.
Now their priorities have shifted, and the two want to spend more time as a family.
“Sundays are strictly for them, whether it’s playing with my kids or going out together, I’m always spending it with them,” he said.
Mulyavk began to work with Zarah Dement when she was 11.
“He has definitely inspired me as a teacher and his encouragement to learn many things, not just in dance, is meaningful,” said Dement, now 19. “He is a really funny guy and he’s also one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.”
Mulyvak’s passion for dance isn’t stopping anytime soon.
“If you’re dancing and you love it, you don’t need any advice, you just go for it,” Mulyavk said.
