“Dirty Dancing” Musical Puts Romance Back into Couples Dancing

dirty dancing london show

The famous “lift” (don’t’ try this at home) that is the signature image of this movie is just its public face … which is rated by one expert as the sixth most famous dance pose in all movies ever. But there is lots going on behind the scenes in this drama. Impressive as it was on the big screen in its 1987 debut, we had “the time of our life” seeing it on stage in London this month. The male lead Johnny, Paul-Michael Jones, is a British champion Latin and Standards dancer, so had plenty of dancing talent. And while there are a lot of choreographed “theater art” moves in both the movie and this stage version, there are also a lot of scenes of young couples doing sexy dance steps that shocked their waltz-and-foxtrot-oriented parents. We don’t know if any of many “millenials” (under 30’s) have watched this, but we’d bet that they would find it at least as interesting as the newer version of “Footloose”. Not surprisingly in show business, there is a story behind the story, as detailed in this 25th anniversary tribute.

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