Miranda Garrison

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Miranda Garrison is an American actress, dancer, and choreographer, best known for her film choreography.

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Career

For the 1987 film Dirty Dancing , starring Patrick Swayze, Miranda Garrison assisted Kenny Ortega in choreography; [1] [2] she also acted in the film, playing the part of Vivian Pressman. [3] For the 1988 film Salsa, she acted the part of Luna, the owner of a Los Angeles salsa club and a romantic interest. [4] In this film, she danced numbers from her own work as the choreographer. In the 1990 film The Forbidden Dance about the Lambada from Brazil, she again appeared as an actress-dancer, performing in the role of Mickey. [5] In 1996, she assisted choreographer Vincent Paterson in the film Evita , with singer Madonna, based on the 1978 musical of Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Early in her career, Garrison danced in the high-profile 1980 film Xanadu , starring the singer Olivia Newton-John. After Xanadu Garrison was a frequent collaborator with choreographer and later director Kenny Ortega. [6] In 1997, Garrison choreographed Selena , the biographical film about Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, the Tejano singing star whose life was tragically cut short. She was also the choreographer for the 2004 film Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights , set in late-1950s Cuba, and for The Skeleton Key , a supernatural thriller released in 2005. In 2001, she directed the Golden Eagle awards ceremony. [6] In 2007 and 2008, Garrison was a judge in the British reality TV competition, Dirty Dancing: The Time of Your Life . An on-line 'Filmography' for Miranda Garrison lists forty-eight entries for film (34) and TV (14), twelve as an actor and/or a dancer 1979–2005, and thirty-six for choreographic work 1987–2009. [7]

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References

  1. The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen. (2014). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. p143
  2. Grey, J. (2022). Out of the Corner: A Memoir. United States: Random House Publishing Group. p186
  3. Negron, Sage (2021-06-03). "What Happened To The Cast Of Dirty Dancing?". Looper.com. Retrieved 2022-07-25.
  4. McMains, J. E. (2015). Spinning Mambo Into Salsa: Caribbean Dance in Global Commerce. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. p225
  5. Nowlan, G. W., Nowlan, G. L., Nowlan, R. A. (2001). The films of the nineties : a complete, qualitative filmography of over 3000 feature-length English language films, theatrical and video-only, released between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 1999. United Kingdom: McFarland.
  6. 1 2 Interview with Mick Chang, at Salsa Power, June 8, 2001.
  7. Miranda Garrison: Filmography, at Hollywood.com.