Starting today, and leading up to the Top 20, we'll be writing these little pieces on the personalities that form a huge chunk of So You Think You Can Dance: the judges, the choreographers, and of course, the host.  We begin with Adam Shankman, former occasional show judge, and starting this season, permanent show judge.

To be honest, I only knew Adam Shankman--or the guy they call "Shanks" ever so lovingly--through his enthusiastic critiques on So You Think You Can Dance.  Turns out, he's done a load of stuff that you've probably seen, but didn't know it was him until now.
This "all around immature nice guy" is, above all, a choreographer, having devised the moves to the film adaptation of Hairspray.  In fact, he's choreographed a lot of movies, and the list is surprising: Boogie Nights, Catch Me If You Can, The Wedding Singer, She's All That, and even animated movies such as Anastacia and Antz.  He's also responsible, at least in part, for that fun Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode: he also choreographed the dances there.

Perhaps film buffs will know Shanks for his work in the movies.  He, of course, not only choreographed, but directed Hairspray.  He made Mandy Moore a sickly girl in A Walk to Remember (and unwittingly introduced us to Switchfoot).  He turned Vin Diesel into a babysitting government agent in The Pacifier.  He made Adam Sandler sing in The Wedding Singer.  And he messed with Adam Sandler again, making his stories all too real in Bedtime Stories.  

He directed and staged Prop 8: The Musical, the viral online vid that went against the proposal to ban gay marriage in California--a cause dear to him, since he's openly gay.  He was also a producer of the dance film Step Up and the Zac Efron movie 17 Again.

Born on November 27, 1964 in Los Angeles, Shanks always had this inclination towards dance.  He attended Juilliard for a while, but dropped out to pursue a career in musical theater.  He became a choreographer after lying about having worked with Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul.  Even though he didn't actually have that experience, that's how he went from background dancer to the entertainment bigwig that he is. Who says fibbing doesn't pay?

He joined So You Think You Can Dance in the third season of the show, introducing the world to the term "lyrical hip-hop", when describing Tabitha and Napoleon's routines.  He really enjoyed his time on the show, having publicly begged (on Twitter) that he be named a permanent judge on the show.  As we all know, he'll now be doing just that.


- Henrik Batallones, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
(Image courtesy of WENN)