Dance Mogul Magazine · Artist Profile · Updated October 2026

Jamal Sims

From the dancer who walked into a Michael Jackson audition without an agent to a choreographer and director working across film, television and live performance, Sims's career offers a wider answer to a question DMM keeps asking: what can come after the dance floor?

By Dance Mogul Magazine · Choreography · Direction · Dance Culture

Jamal Sims has spent decades turning movement into story. His path began as a self-taught dancer who booked Michael Jackson's “Remember the Time,” then expanded into choreography for film, television, music and live performance—and eventually into directing. In 2026, that arc is still moving forward.

From Taking the Floor to Shaping the Room

Sims's agency biography describes him as a self-taught dancer who worked on numerous projects before his first break as a choreographer arrived on Usher's “You Make Me Wanna.” Before that, as he told DMM in 2013, his first job was Michael Jackson's “Remember the Time,” an audition he found in the newspaper and attended without an agent. On film, the Step Up franchise became his breakout, and he went on to choreograph every installment from 2006 to 2014.

That progression matters to DMM because it demonstrates how dance knowledge can accumulate. Performance experience becomes an understanding of casting. Musicality becomes choreography. Choreography becomes leadership. Leadership can become directing. A career in dance does not have to stop at the edge of the stage.

The Step Up Years—and a DMM Conversation That Still Matters

Dance Mogul Magazine interviewed Sims in 2013 as another Step Up production was taking shape. The conversation was practical—auditions, casting, preparation and what makes a dancer stand out—but it also revealed a philosophy that now reads like a blueprint for his later career.

Asked what he would tell a passionate young dancer who might not have conventional technical training, Sims answered: “JUST COME!” He remembered being 18, seeing the Michael Jackson audition in a newspaper, going without an agent and booking the job.

Read the complete 2013 DMM exclusive →

Jamal Sims. DMM archive. Photo credit: Brown Skynn.

A Career Built Across Mediums

The Director Was Already Inside the Choreographer

Choreography asks a creator to understand bodies, music, space, camera, character, pacing and intention at once. Sims's expansion into directing therefore feels less like leaving dance than extending the same storytelling intelligence into a larger frame.

His documentary When the Beat Drops, centered on bucking culture and its innovators, won the Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize at Outfest in 2018. On Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, he choreographed the full season and directed an episode, and the Television Academy nominated his choreography from the series.

Recognition in 2026

The Television Academy currently lists Sims with six Emmy nominations. His 2026 nomination recognizes choreography for RuPaul's Drag Race; his 2025 nomination recognized “He Lives in You” from The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl. Earlier nominations include work for RuPaul's Drag Race, Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration, Encanto at the Hollywood Bowl and Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies.

In 2026, the World Choreography Awards also nominated Sims in two categories: Motion Picture for A Very Jonas Christmas Movie, with associate Kai Martinez, and Television Award Show/Special for The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl, with associates Kai Martinez and Will B. Bell.

Why This Career Matters to the Next Generation

Young dancers are often taught to think about the next audition, the next booking or the next competition. Sims's career makes room for a longer view. The skills developed in a studio can become the foundation for choreography, directing, casting, collaboration and creative leadership.

That does not mean every dancer should become a choreographer or director. It means the knowledge acquired through dance can travel farther than a performer may initially imagine.

Why Jamal Sims’s Story Matters to Dance Mogul Magazine

Dance Mogul Magazine exists to document lived stories that help people become better versions of themselves. Jamal Sims’s story belongs in that archive because it starts where so many of our readers start: a young dancer with no agent, no connections and a newspaper listing. He went anyway. Everything that followed, from Step Up to six Emmy nominations to a director’s chair, was built on that one decision to show up.

It also speaks to something DMM has argued since 2010: that dance is a foundation, not a ceiling. The discipline, musicality and leadership a dancer builds in the studio are the same tools that run a film set, a television season or a documentary about a community’s culture. Sims told us in 2013 that dancers are more than dancers. His career is the proof, and it is a map for any young artist wondering what their training can become.

Explore more of that conversation in our Exclusive Interviews archive, Celebrating Black Creative Directors & Choreographers, our Dancing with the Stars coverage, and Career and Craft, where we look at how artists build careers that last.

Frequently Asked Questions

Verification sources: Dance Mogul Magazine archive (2013 interview); MSA Agency biography; Television Academy; Outfest; 2026 World Choreography Awards nominee list. Videos embedded from MSA Agency's portfolio and World of Wonder. Copy updated October 2026.