A Dance Baby Comes Into His Own

Dancer/choreographer Travis Wall, a mainstay of So You Think You Can Dance, though only 28 years old, has been a dance professional for nearly two decades.

Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Choreography for five consecutive years, Wall is doubly gifted. A quicksilver dancer, he swaps in a nanosecond between floor and flying. And he is the prolific author of spidery, acrobatics-infused choreography. 



Wall was a dance baby. Literally cutting his teeth at his mother’s Virginia Beach dance studio, he claims to have first choreographed at age two, surely donning diapers, not dance tights. Busting moves on a Dr. Pepper commercial at age 9 launched him as an American television habitué.

The nation witnessed Wall’s public maturing, as he morphed his strawberry-blonde hair from Mohawk to a sophisticated cropped cut on So You Think You Can Dance broadcasts.

Wall first sizzled as a contestant on the massively popular dance-competition show 10 years ago. He joined the ranks of SYTYCD resident choreographers in 2009. This year (season 12), Wall parried two honors.

As the mentor to “Team Stage,” he guided the traditionally trained contestants in a “Stage vs Street” dance-off that serves as the season’s theme. And in an epiphany both personal and professional, he choreographed the show’s first-ever same-sex dance quartet, one of his three Emmy-nominated dance routines for 2015.

How did the “Wind Beneath my Wings,” come into being, Travis?

“Wind Beneath my Wings” is my marriage equality number. The show had never highlighted same-sex dance partnering. We are constantly asking LGBT contestants to partner the opposite sex even though they are gay. Two men, or two women, had never danced in a romantic way.

The show’s co-executive producer Jeff Thacker felt we should include everyone, and he asked me to make it a group dance. I said, "That’s even better. That’s incredible." Which is why I choreographed for two men and two women.

How did your dancers feel about it?

Of my four dancers, one was gay. But all four were very excited to dance in something historic. They were honored to be part of it. They couldn’t wait to do it.   

Even more ambitious is your Emmy-nominated work, “Wave,” for seven men -- a very well-crafted work. 

Thank you. I’ve been choreographing duets for SYTYCD for five years. Partnering is something built into my aesthetic since I can remember. But I also love painting pictures with larger numbers of bodies. 

The song for “Wave” [by Beck] was very inspiring. It had a haunted almost deserted sound that I found intriguing. I knew I wanted a group of male dancers—they represent seven souls lost to the sea—who rise from the water at night and sweep the stage with beautiful movement.

With the costumes, lighting, and the overall drift of how the music laid onto the dancer’s bodies, they seemed to embody the form of water.

There’s symmetry in how the “Wave” dancers drift onto the stage and your amazing ending -- they drop off the lip of the stage.

[laughing] While you’re choreographing, you’re always thinking, "how will this piece end?" I asked my producers, "Can I get crash mats?" I wanted them to look like they were falling back into the water. Those things just come up in my mind, they’re never planned.

One of the men does a massive leap.

I take it in baby steps. I have to get the dancers to trust me, and trust the people who are throwing and catching. I push dancers to extreme levels, but safety is always first. We start small, and feel the comfort level grow. 

Were you happy with how that leap turned out?

Oh, absolutely. [A pause, then with laughter] But I always think they can go bigger and higher. 

How do you feel when the SYTYCD audience screams, or gives verbal feedback, during your choreography?

Funny you ask that. In earlier seasons, the audience was wrapped around the stage, and their trademark was always loud and involved. In season 6 we introduced a proscenium background making it more about the performance.

There’s times where I feel the audience noise kind of ruins the mood, like if they are constantly cheering for every lift they see. Sometimes the camera is inviting us to a place where we shouldn’t be, a place where we are lucky enough, with the [help of the] camera, to witness something incredible and other worldly.

I think that when you scream and cheer over the track, it can take you out of the ambiance of the piece. There’s actually been a couple of times, this season during the commercial break, I came out and ask the audience to just be captivated by the piece, let their eyes take it in and applaud at the end [only]. For other routines, like with hip-hop, the audience noise enhances the dance. 

You have a dance company, ‘Shaping Sound,’ that’s embarking on a national tour. That’s a cool name for a dance company. Who came up with that name?

I did! I was on an airplane, stuck on a tarmac at Burbank Airport staring out the window. At the edge of the runway are walls shaped in curves. From the ground, they curve up toward the sky. I realized there is a neighborhood on the other side, and that the walls shape the sound of the engine noise upward. And I thought, "OMG, that’s what we do. Choreographers shape sound."

That’s brilliant. You do it all. So … in what space do you feel most at home?

Choreographing. And creating. And stepping back to watch the piece. To be very honest, I’ve always been insecure as a performer. I’ve grown up with a lot of injuries; I am always in pain, even if I am not dancing -- even if I am just walking or lying in bed.

As a dancer, I’ve had a hard time in the room with a choreographer. I can do what they ask, but the angst and the pain can be unbearable. The things I cannot do because of my restrictions (I can’t put my leg by my head anymore) have made me insecure as a dancer.

So when I am creating, I get to step back and watch a structured piece that I put together. That’s where I am at home; that is where I belong; that’s where I am most comfortable and get the most from it.

I still enjoy dancing in my own creations, but the fact that I cannot sit back and see it live -- that’s what I don’t like about it.

That sounds like a control freak … because that’s what most choreographers are, right?

[laughter] You hit the nail right on the head.

Who are your inspirations?

My mother was a huge inspiration; she was my teacher since I was born. I’ve watched her choreograph and teach in every genre possible.

Mia Michaels is another; my first experience as an assistant choreographer was with her. Wade Robson, because his concepts and ideas are amazing, his execution impeccable, same for his eye for camera, and attention to detail.

And I want to be Rob Marshall, choreographing multiple projects, movies, stage.

Fosse: I’ve studied every Bob Fosse movie musical. It’s a way of speaking with the body, the isolations and again, the attention to detail and focus. The smallest movements become so loud, bigger than any grand jeté or pirouette. Fosse paved the way for us all.

What does television do for dance?

This is a big topic. The conservative dance world, the concert dance world, looks down on shows like SYTYCD. But at the end of the day, not only is it giving opportunities to dancers and choreographers to reach a large audience, it is bringing new eyes to dance that probably never saw it before. It’s giving dance a larger audience.

There are big dance shows now on Broadway, and people want to see them. People are going to see the dance companies that visit their small towns … because they think, "I love dance."

You clearly feel that SYTYCD’s impact has been vast.

On SYTYCD, we are shining light on a community that works so hard. We are under recognized and under paid, so to have the opportunity to grow a community, and be finally appreciated—in my personal case, for something I know I was born to do—I never in a million years thought I would be in this place.

My mom told me, if you choose this career you are going to have a really hard life. You’re not going to make money; you’ll live paycheck to paycheck; and probably be a support dancer behind a bigger performer or artist, if you are lucky.

The fact that I have been able to start a dance company from scratch, take it on a third national tour, because of a show [SYTYCD] where a bit of my soul gets expressed every week, where I can vent my creative frustration, and then to be recognized five years in a row by the Television Academy!

The list goes on and on how amazing the show has been in my life and the opportunities it has given me. I cannot thank it enough and I cannot thank Nigel [Lythgoe, executive producer] enough for creating the show and bringing it to America—where it changed my life.