• Wade Robson: Mate Wade feels Jacko loss

  Brisbane Courier-Mail - Found Jun. 28, 2009 MICHAEL Jackson's closest Australian friend, Wade Robson, has broken his silence over the star's death. Choreographer Robson blogged of his ...

• Breaking news: Wade Robson breaks silence

  Herald Sun - Found Jun. 26, 2009 He is the winner of two Emmy Awards for choreography and had his own show on MTV, The Wade Robson Project. Robson also appeared in three of... Michael Jackson's Australian confidant speaks out - The Age Jackson's Australian confidant speaks out - Sydney Morning Herald Jacko's Aussie confidant Wade Robson breaks his silence - NewKerala.com Jacko's Aussie confidant Wade Robson breaks his silence - Yahoo! India Explore All

  Sydney Morning Herald

• Wade Robson: Aussie friends grieve Jackson

  Brisbane Courier-Mail - Found Jun. 25, 2009 ... hosting his own MTV series The Wade Robson Project, working with Britney Spears and N'SYNC and winning two Emmy Awards. Wade, Ms Robson and...

• Spoiler Chat: Are Gossip Girl's Chuck and Blair Over Already?

  EOnline.com - Found Jun. 24, 2009 (We want to see Tabitha & Napoleon, Brian Friedman, Wade Robson, Mia Michaels and Mandy Moore perform?who's on your wish list?

• So You Think You Can Dance: Another Two Bite The Dust

  TVgasm Blog - Found Jun. 22, 2009 He is. Sorta. Well, not really. They started out with a bang in the first show with the Wade Robson number, but this week they just didn't hit it.

• SYTYCD Wade Robson tribute to Michael Jackson

  NewsOK.com - Found Jun. 27, 2009 For those Wade Robson fans (and if you watch ?So You Think You Can Dance? you probably are), Robson did a dance tribute several years ago to

• "So You Think You Can Dance" Week 4 review

  Examiner.com - Found 20 hours ago You never know what you're going to get when either Brian Friedman or Wade Robson bring a vision to the stage and America was shocked once... So You Think You Can Dance Top 14 Perform - Curlio So You Think You Can Dance recap - Some chains, some ballet and an ... - Examiner.com Explore All

• SYTYCD Top 14 Meet Aliens, Broadway, Classical Ballet ...and Katie ...

  EOnline.com - Found Jul. 2, 2009 ... s creation wore its alien-looking-for-human-to-mate-with theme on its sleeve?but everything Wade Robson's crash test dummies routine was... Holmes to Perform on `So You Think You Can Dance' - ABC News Holmes, Lythgoe team for Dizzy Feet - Variety Katie Holmes showing leg for charity - CNN Katie Holmes to Show Some Leg For Charity - People Explore All

  USA Today

• So You Think You Can Dance: Top 14 perform tonight

  Ledger-Enquirer - Found Jul. 1, 2009 The show is said to possibly include choreography by Paula Abdul, as well as longtime 'SYTYCD' choreographers Mia Michaels and Wade Robson.

• 'So You Think You Can Dance' attempting Michael Jackson tribute

  Reality TV World - Found Jun. 30, 2009 '[Mia Michaels] has chosen the song she likes, we've spoken to [Wade Robson]. I've left messages for Paula. I've spoken to [Shane Sparks]. FOX's "So You Think You Can Dance" Working on Michael Jackson ... - Examiner.com Explore All

Wade Robson
Born	September 17, 1982 (1982-09-17) (age 26) Brisbane, Australia
Occupation	Dancer, choreographer, director, songwriter
Spouse(s)	Amanda Rodriguez (2005-present)1
Official website

Wade Jeremy William Robson (born September 17, 1982) is an Australian dancer, choreographer, producer and songwriter. 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 latter 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, 1982,² 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.³ 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.⁴ He appeared on the Australian TV talent show New Faces 4 in 1986. He performed a dance routine of the Jackson hit "Smooth Criminal," complete with a miniature version of the outfit as depicted in the video. He won the competition, and the prize was a chance to meet Jackson.⁴ When Jackson himself toured Australia the following year for the Bad tour, Robson's routines and costumes came to Jackson's attention. Jackson was so impressed, he invited Robson to perform at his Brisbane concert.³

Career

Early career

Robson was in a talent troupe called Johnny Young's Talent school, and the group did fourteen shows a week, usually at venues like shopping malls. 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."⁴

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 label³ through Epic/SME Records. The following year, he was teaching dance classes in Hollywood.⁴ He formed a troupe of dancing children which performed internationally.⁵ He received his first choreography job for the R&B group Immature at fourteen. The job led to others, for artists such as Britney Spears. Being a self-described "short little white kid", his clients were sometimes hesitant to follow his direction.⁴ When Spears first interviewed Robson to choreograph her tour, she exclaimed "He's a friggin' baby!", as she had expected him to be in his 30s or 40s. But his talent often won such clients over.³

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 2001, he choreographed Spears' I'm a Slave 4 U video, and was choreographer and director of N'Sync's 2001 "Pop Odyssey" 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. Wade can be seen throughout the "Pop" music video. That same year, he directed Spears' "Dream Within A Dream" tour. During the tour, rumors began to circulate that he and Spears (who was dating Justin Timberlake at the time) were having an affair. Robson denied all such allegations, saying, "Britney and I had such a close creative relationship; people always tried to connect us."³

Adult career

Robson is the creator and host of MTV's The Wade Robson Project, a talent search competition for hip hop dancers.⁶ The program was sponsored by Juice Batteries.⁷

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. The shoes were distributed in the U.S. through the Ralph Libonati Co.⁸

In 2004, Disney commissioned Robson to direct three musical movies for Disney.⁹

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.¹⁰

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.¹¹

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.¹², 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."¹³.

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.¹⁴. 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. They also co-wrote Britney Spears' "What It's Like To Be Me" which Timberlake sang back up vocals on Spears' album Britney. The song's copyright is held jointly by Robson and Timberlake's respective companies WaJeRo Sound and Tennman Tunes.

Robson co-wrote the song "Movin' On" for the Backstreet Boys album, Never Gone, with Backstreet member Howie Dorough. The song was released as a bonus track.

Robson has also written songs for the singing groups Dream and Youngstown.^{citation needed} 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. Robson appeared as himself in the 2004 urban dance film You Got Served, which was co-choreographed by Shane Sparks, and won awards for "Best Dance Sequence."^{citation needed}

Routines for So You Think You Can Dance

Personal life

Robson received his GED at age fifteen.³

In July 2002, Robson's father, Dennis Robson, passed away after a long illness.³

In 2003, Michael Jackson was arrested on charges of child molestation. Starting from age seven, Robson was invited several times to Jackson's Neverland Ranch, where several boys, including Robson and child actor Macaulay Culkin, would all sleep together in Jackson's bed. A member of Jackson's staff testified that she had seen Jackson behaving inappropriately towards Robson, such as taking showers together.¹⁶ In November 2003, Robson publicly denied any wrongdoing on Jackson's part,¹⁷ and he, along with his mother and sister,¹ testified in Jackson's defense at the People v. Jackson trial in 2005.¹⁸ Jackson was eventually acquitted. In a 2003 interview, Robson said of Jackson, "His heart is so genuine. He has no concept of a normal life."³ Robson and Jackson remained friends until Jackson's death in June 2009.¹¹⁵

On August 13, 2005, Robson married fashion designer Amanda Rodriguez in Hawaii. Jackson was among those invited to the wedding.

Career credits

Discography

• 1994: Quo
• 2006: Wade Robson's Project: Dance Beats Vol. 1

Videography

• Michael Jackson's "Black or White" (1991) Music video — dancer (uncredited)
• Michael Jackson's Dangerous: The Short Films (1993) (V) — dancer ("Jam"/"Black or White")
• Britney Spears's "Born To Make You Happy" (1999) — choreographer
• A*Teens' Upside Down, choreographer (2000/2001)
• Britney Spears's "I'm A Slave 4 U" (2001) — choreographer
• NSync's "Pop" (2001) — choreographer & dancer

Filmography

• EDtv (1999) — teenage boy
• Kazaam (1996) — Elito
• You Got Served (2004) - Himself
• I? (2005) — writer, director

Television

• Pacific Blue, "Users" (1998) — Brandon Jeter
• Picket Fences, "Elective Conduct" (1994) — T.J.
• Nothing Sacred, "House of Rage" (1997) — Garner Cole
• Full House, "Come Fly with Me" (1992) — Terry, traveling choir member

References

External links

• waderobson.com, official website
• Wade Robson at the Internet Movie Database
• Tremaine Dance profile
• MTV biography
• Ask Men profile
• PopGurls interview, "20 Questions with Wade Robson"
• Wade Robson France, French Website.

'Video link

• Wade Robson Videos

Dance portal