Shannon Holtzapffel

Shannon Holtzapffel is a Dutch-born Australian dancer and choreographer whose work spans live performance, television and film. He performed as a principal dancer for Michael Jackson's planned This Is It concert series and choreographed for and later judged So You Think You Can Dance Australia. His film work includes choreography, motion capture and visualization on projects including The Greatest Showman, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Minions: The Rise of Gru and Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie. In 2018, he shared a Chita Rivera Award for the choreography of The Greatest Showman.

Early life and training

Holtzapffel was born in Delft, the Netherlands, and moved with his family to Brisbane when he was four. He attended the Johnny Young Talent School and Davidia Lind Dance Centre, and graduated from Sunnybank State High School. As a child performer, he was selected for Queensland Ballet's Sleeping Beauty and Australian Ballet seasons of Manon and Don Quixote, and appeared in his first television commercial at age seven.

Holtzapffel trained at Clarrissa Hill Dance Centre in Brisbane and received a scholarship to the Edge Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles at age 17. He credited choreographer Robert Sturrock with maturing him as a dancer and helping him make the transition from dance-school student to professional. After receiving the scholarship, Holtzapffel obtained representation in Los Angeles and spent six years travelling between work in Australia and the United States.

Career Performance and television

Holtzapffel and Simon Lind created Project Moda around 2005. By 2008, The Daily Telegraph described Holtzapffel as running the production company. He took part in workshops and developed character movement by studying penguin behaviour and translating it into choreographed dance and exaggerated movement. His other early work in the United States included Spears's music video for "Womanizer", the MTV documentary Britney: For the Record and promotional work for Circus.

While working in Australia on the sequel to Happy Feet, Holtzapffel travelled to Los Angeles to audition for Michael Jackson. In an interview published by El Universal alongside the film's director, Kenny Ortega, Holtzapffel recalled Jackson directing the dancers during the final rehearsals and urging them to consider each step carefully, perform at their best and enjoy the moment onstage. From more than 5,000 applicants, he was selected as one of Jackson's 11 principal dancers for the planned concert series. Holtzapffel later turned down a place on Britney Spears's The Circus Starring Britney Spears tour because it conflicted with This Is It. He featured prominently in the documentary assembled from the rehearsals and had been scheduled to continue with Jackson on the proposed world tour.

Following Jackson's death, Holtzapffel performed at the public memorial held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in July 2009. He also performed at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards with Janet Jackson. He later appeared as a principal dancer in Michael Jackson's This Is It and took part in the worldwide campaign for the video game Michael Jackson: The Experience. Later that year, he appeared as a choreographer on the CMT reality competition series Your Chance to Dance, working with contestants on routines for the competition.

In 2011, Holtzapffel performed on Kylie Minogue's Aphrodite: Les Folies Tour and appeared in the concert film Aphrodite Les Folies – Live in London. In the series, Holtzapffel discussed the physical demands of professional touring. He also joined Paula Abdul, Jason Gilkison and Aaron Cash on the judging panel for the fourth season of So You Think You Can Dance Australia. He had previously worked on the series as a choreographer before joining its judging panel.

In 2016, Holtzapffel joined the season 22 cast of Dancing with the Stars as a troupe member. He appeared in a 360-degree virtual reality opening number with the show's professional dancers, set to Donna Summer's "Last Dance".

By 2018, Holtzapffel had choreographed three resident Las Vegas productions: Absinthe at Caesars Palace, Jukebox at the Venetian and Masters of Illusion at Bally's.

His work with P!nk began in 2018 with the "Beautiful Trauma" music video, which featured Channing Tatum. The 2021 documentary P!nk: All I Know So Far, which followed the tour leading up to P!nk's first Wembley Stadium performance, featured Holtzapffel as a dancer. He later performed on P!nk's Summer Carnival tour, including its Australian leg in 2024.

His television choreography later included "From Unknown Graves", a 2022 episode of The Orville directed by Seth MacFarlane.

Film choreography and visualization

Around 2009, Holtzapffel worked with director Michael Gracey and Hugh Jackman on a Lipton Iced Tea commercial in Rio de Janeiro. Auditions for the film's dancer "Oddity" roles and ensemble were initially held in New York before being extended to Los Angeles, where Holtzapffel helped find performers who were cast.

Holtzapffel later served as choreographer on Minions: The Rise of Gru.

His work on Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile included choreographing the film's dance sequences, developing movement for Javier Bardem's character, Hector P. Valenti, and shaping Lyle's performance through motion capture. He described the challenge of translating human movement into that of a crocodile while keeping Lyle believable rather than overly cartoon-like, and said the choreography was shaped around what the character could do within each scene and environment.

On Ladybug & Cat Noir: The Movie, Holtzapffel worked with Cameron Sonerson on the film's choreography and visualization. Drawing on ballet and jazz for Ladybug's movement, he also used a waltz to depict the developing relationship between the central characters. Director Jeremy Zag said he wanted the fight scenes to retain a sense of dance, with movement that could support both the action sequences and the musical numbers; Holtzapffel and Sonerson developed the choreography and visualization for that approach. Their collaboration dated to 2015 and included projects such as The Greatest Showman, Luck, Minions: The Rise of Gru and Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.