Travis Wall

Travis Michael Wall is an American contemporary choreographer and dancer born in Virginia Beach in 1987, who rose to prominence through television while maintaining a parallel career in Broadway, Off-Broadway, and touring concert dance. Growing up in a dance-studio environment led by his mother, Wall began working professionally as a child, earning a national commercial at age nine. In 2000, he performed in the Broadway revival of *The Music Man*, playing a River City resident and understudying Winthrop Paroo.

Wall became widely known as the runner-up on season two of *So You Think You Can Dance* in 2006. He subsequently returned to the show as a resident choreographer in 2009, a shift that moved him from visible contestant to creator. Working for television required choreography that functioned simultaneously for dancers, studio audiences, cameras, and editing—a constraint that shaped his approach to narrative and ensemble design.

His Emmy record documents a decade of sustained recognition: ten nominations between 2011 and 2020, with wins in 2015 for "Wave," "When I Go," and "Wind Beneath My Wings," and in 2017 for "The Mirror," "Send In The Clowns," and "She Used To Be Mine." Additional credits included choreography for *Dancing with the Stars*, music videos, and work connected with artists including Carrie Underwood, Justin Bieber, and Demi Lovato, as well as the film *Step Up Revolution*.

Wall served as artistic director of Shaping Sound, a company dedicated to bringing choreographers' response to music into touring concert form. In 2019, he choreographed the Off-Broadway musical *The Wrong Man*, which earned him a 2020 Drama Desk nomination and a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography.

In October 2021, Break the Floor reported that it had suspended Wall pending a third-party investigation after a former assistant alleged grooming and sexual advances beginning when the accuser was a teenager. Wall denied the allegations. A 2022 Associated Press and *Toronto Star* investigation reported that he was no longer working for the company.