Profile

Ivana Filipova is a third generation Russian-American, the daughter of a Broadway costume designer and her husband who owned his own limo company. Ivana's great-grandmother on her mom's side was a prima ballerina in the Imperial Ballet (now known as the Mariinsky Ballet) in St. Petersburg, and married her great-grandfather, a dancer in Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet. The couple left Russia in the early days of the Bolshevik Revolution, not wanting to still be around if the Marxists came to power, and settled in New York City.

Despite being far from their homeland of Russia, dance very much remained part of their lives, and that very much continued down the line to Ivana. While her own mother was not a dancer, her aunt was, and her mother was very much involved in the performing arts, just from the background. Ivana was doted on openly by her grandparents, but her parents, both hard workers in their own right, encouraged their daughter to work hard for what she wanted in life. From a very young age, Ivana was always dancing, taking ballet classes at her eldest Aunty's studio. She excelled at ballet, and went on to add other styles of dance to repertoire along the way.

When she was very young, however, her father was killed due to a tragic error in judgment, in which he transported suspected members of the Russian Mafia in one of his limos to Brighton Beach, and was killed when they were attacked by a rival faction of the group. Determined not to lose her daughter, too, Ivana's mother, Svetlana, just worked that much harder in the wake of their loss to continue to give Ivana a good life. The family struggled with the heartbreak of losing Ivana's father, but somehow got through it, and life went on.

When Ivana was in middle school, her mother met the man she would later marry through mutual friend Alexandra Petrova -- the mother of Ivana's soon to be stepbrother, Dave's best friend, Kevin Lawson. The pair would fall very much in love, and would soon marry, creating a new family with Ivana being taken on as a little sister to Dave, and his younger brother, Blake. It took some getting used to, but the three kids became extremely close. Adulthood brought with it its own share of difficulties, with Blake enlisting in the Army and serving in Afghanistan, and Dave fighting through a battle with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma that very nearly cost him his life, but it only solidified that much more that they were family.

While Blake joined the army and Dave went to med school, Ivana continued to follow her dreams of dance, and was accepted to Juilliard, where she was studying dance when she met Logan Hayes, who would become her best friend and the fag to her hag. Not to mention her co-lead when they were chosen as male and female lead backup dancers to Angel Shaw on his international tour.

Having returned from the tour, Ivana is grateful to be reunited with her fag, whom she had to leave behind in Liverpool when he was injured prior to a show, and is curious about said fag's hospital roommate, Liverpool Football star, Cameron Preston.