Wade Robson

He began performing as a dancer at the age of five, and as a child worked as a back-up dancer for Michael Jackson. He is also an award-winning choreographer and has directed music videos and world tours for music artists, most notably for 'N Sync and Britney Spears.

Robson has found success as a competition judge, both for his own MTV show, The Wade Robson Project, and the televised competition So You Think You Can Dance. He has won two Emmy awards for his choreography on the later show in 2007 and 2008.

Robson was also one-half of the hip hop group Quo.


Early life
Wade Robson was born on September 17, 1982, in Brisbane, Australia, to Amanda Robson. He has an older brother named Shane and an older sister named Chantal.According to his mother, she played Michael Jackson's Thriller non-stop while she was pregnant with him, although the album was released over two months after his birth. Robson began dancing at the age of two, and when he saw the music video to the hugely popular "Thriller" song, he had it memorized by the time he was three. He appeared on the Australian TV talent show New Faces 4 in 1986. He won the competition, and the prize was a chance to meet Jackson. When Jackson himself toured Australia the following year for the Bad tour, Robson's routines and costumes came to Jackson's attention.

It was a performance, however, at Disneyland at the age of seven that sparked Robson's interest in America. So when he was nine, he, his mother and his sister made the move there.

Jackson assisted them in the move, and recruited Robson to appear in three of Jackson's music videos: "Black or White," "Jam," and "Heal the World."
Before long, and at the tender age of 11, Robson had an agent. They formed a hip hop group called Quo with DeWayne Turrentine, and by the end of the year, the duo released an album, which was on Jackson's MJJ Music label through Epic/SME Records.The following year, he was teaching dance classes in Hollywood. He formed a troupe of dancing children which performed internationally. He received his first choreography job for the R&B group Immature at fourteen. But his talent often won such clients over.
During the late 1990s, while still a teenager, Robson choreographed Spears's Pepsi commercials, including one which aired during the 2001 Super Bowl.

He choreographed the performance by 'N Sync and Spears at the 1999 Video Music Awards, and he co-directed Spears's 1999-2000 world tours as well as 'N Sync's 2000 No Strings Attached Tour. In the N'sync music video "Pop," Robson had to fill in for N'sync member Joey Fatone during several of the dance sequences because of an injury that Fatone sustained at an N'Sync concert the night before the video shoot.

Robson denied all such allegations, saying, "Britney and I had such a close creative relationship; people always tried to connect us."
Adult career
Robson is the creator and host of MTV's The Wade Robson Project, a talent search competition for hip hop dancers. The program was sponsored by Juice Batteries.
In 2002, Robson was named one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch".
Dance clothing company Power T Dance developed a line of name-brand consumer dance shoes with Robson. through the Ralph Libonati Co.
In 2004, Disney commissioned Robson to direct three musical movies for Disney.
Robson has joined several other high profile choreographers, such as Mia Michaels and Shane Sparks on the PULSE tour, a series of nationwide weekend workshops designed to give rising commercial dancers the chance to train under top choreographers.


Robson giving feedback to contestants after a performance on the July 18, 2007 episode of So You Think You Can Dance



Dancers from So You Think You Can Dance (Season 2) performing the Zombie dance or the "Ramalama (Bang Bang)" which won Wade his first Emmy in 2007.

In 2007, Robson began choreographing the American Idols LIVE! Tour.He has also choreographed both group and partner pieces for the second and third seasons of "So You Think You Can Dance".
On September 8, 2007, Robson won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography for Ramalama (Bang Bang), a group dance routine set on track by the same name from the album Ruby Blue by Róisín Murphy, featured on (Season 2) of So You Think You Can Dance.
Robson won again in the same category in (Season 3) (2008) for Humming Bird and the Flower, a jazz dance routine performed by Jaimie Goodwin and Hokuto "Hok" Konishi', set to "Chairman's Waltz" from Memoirs of a Geisha soundtrack., that was lauded by Executive Producer Nigel Lythgoe as "absolutely genius, brilliant, and one of those routines that we will remember on this series for a very long time.".
Pop superstar Britney Spears hired Robson once again to choreograph The Circus Starring: Britney Spears, Spears' comeback world tour but Robson ended up being replaced by Jamie King and Simon Ellis.. Robson is currently choreographing a Las Vegas show called Criss Angel Believe (2008) for Cirque du Soleil.
Robson and N'Sync's Justin Timberlake partnered in 2001, co-writing the hit singles "Pop", "Gone", and "See Right Through You" on 'N Sync's final album Celebrity.

Robson had initially written "Celebrity" for his own album, but was persuaded to let 'N Sync record it instead. The song was released as a bonus track.
Robson has also written songs for the singing groups Dream and Youngstown. He also remixed two of Mandy Moore's songs from her debut album for her second album, I Wanna Be With You.
Acting
In 1999, he appeared in a series of Jack in the Box commercials as "TJ", one of the Meaty Cheesy Boys, a spoof of boy bands of the late 1990s.

A member of Jackson's staff testified that she had seen Jackson behaving inappropriately towards Robson, such as taking showers together. In November 2003, Robson publicly denied any wrongdoing on Jackson's part, and he, along with his mother and sister, testified in Jackson's defense at the People v.