♪ 'Cause I had the time of my life ♪
♪ And I owe it all to you ♪
[upbeat music]
- I'm Lauren Grant.
- And I'm Christopher Grant.
- And we are professional dancers and choreographers.
- And today we're gonna break down
the Time of my Life dance in Dirty Dancing.
- [Man] Mark.
[upbeat music]
- We are breaking down Dirty Dancing,
which was released in 1987.
It takes place in 1963
at the Kellerman's Resort in the Catskills.
It was written by Eleanor Bergstein.
Choreographed by the amazing...
- [Christopher] Kenny Ortega.
- With assistance from Miranda Garrison.
When they went into making this film and even while shooting
no one really thought it was gonna be anything.
Jennifer Grey says it herself that she thought
no one would see the film.
She even saw a screening of it with her agent
and her agent was like, oh this is bad.
Fast-forward, it's like does
incredibly well at the box office.
There were even a group of women called the 100 Plus Club
that saw the movie in theaters over 100 times.
Eleanor Bergstein wrote the story of Dirty Dancing
and it was really based off of her childhood.
She grew up going to the Catskills, to these resorts.
She even based the Johnny Castle character
off of a teacher that she met
at one of the Catskill resorts.
So it was really near and dear to her heart.
- We're gonna break down The Introduction of the Finale.
Johnny walks in.
He grabs Baby's waist.
She grabs his arm.
They set up for the first dip.
Brings her up.
Classic dirty dancing move.
[laughing]
- Sorry.
- Away.
Into full basic half basic step.
Turn.
Step away.
Shoulder check.
Then basic.
♪ Had the time of my life ♪
♪ No I never felt like this before ♪
♪ Yes I swear ♪
♪ It's the truth ♪
♪ And I owe it all to you ♪
♪ 'Cause I had the time of my life ♪
♪ And I owe it all to you ♪
[cheering]
♪ I've been waiting for so long ♪
♪ Now I finally found someone ♪
[snapping]
- You know that part of the film?
- You know, remember that.
[laughing]
The director of Dirty Dancing was Emile Ardolino.
And he was a great appreciator of dance.
- The choreographer of the film is Kenny Ortega.
He grew up dancing.
He was a musical theater kid.
He has some Latin roots.
- One of Kenny Ortega's idols was Gene Kelly
who he had the great opportunity to work with
in the movie Xanadu.
Kelly would invite him back to his home
and they would literally dissect some of Kelly's films.
And discuss why he choreographed
and how he choreographed for camera.
Emile discovered Kenny Ortega, and auditioned him,
and loved his work.
And then Emile was like, okay, Eleanor like,
you have to meet him.
They flew Kenny Ortega to New York,
to Eleanor Bergstein's apartment.
And ended up dirty dancing in her apartment for hours.
And apparently it got like super sexy and hot.
He got the job.
He just had the right flavor and it reminded
Eleanor Bergstein of her childhood and that feeling.
It was like a feeling rather than the steps.
- Kenny comes in to convince Patrick Swayze
to do the film, but Patrick wanted to make sure
that he felt safe with Kenny Ortega.
He was kind of done dancing, he wanted to pursue
more serious acting roles and he didn't want to be
completely known as a dancer.
Because he felt that that would be stunting to him,
moving forward as an actor.
And he would always be cast in all those roles.
And then he ends up doing Dirty Dancing,
which became-- - Thank god.
- [Christopher] This incredible hit and he was able to do
sort of both things.
- He did what Gene Kelly did in his time,
where it was okay for a man to dance.
And you can look super masculine and strong.
- And thank god for Kenny Ortega for convincing him
to do this film because ah, we wouldn't have
this wonderful piece of art.
Jennifer Grey, she was not necessarily a dancer,
but she's a mover, you know.
And I think she's an actress first
and she went into it knowing that
she was gonna have to carry the film as Baby.
She found the character first,
and that's what we fell in love with.
- They purposely didn't teach her stuff,
and only taught it to her when they were actually shooting
to keep that realness alive.
And to really witness something truly happening
versus an actor pretending she doesn't know how to dance
and then discovering how to dance.
For instance, even just the opening into the staff quarters
where she first sees dirty dancing, they purposely
kept her out of that rehearsal space.
So that when they shot, that was really her
seeing it for the first time.
Let's break down the second section,
what we'll call The Turning Section.
So Johnny's holding the hands.
Baby's thumbs are pointing in.
- We're gonna do a little twist.
Jump, pivot, turn.
Grapevine.
Baby turns.
Johnny turns.
Half basic.
- Crossbody lead.
Shoulder check.
It's hard to do slow.
Into a basic with a sidebody lean.
Into a basic step.
Crossbody lead.
♪ With passion in our eyes ♪
♪ There's no way we could disguise it secretly ♪
♪ So we take each other hand ♪
♪ 'Cause we seem to understand the urgency ♪
[laughing]
- Your hair.
- So this film is set in 1963.
And in the early 60s in America
it was definitely a little bit of a time of innocence.
In regarding dance there was like partner dancing,
but not a lot of touching.
And certainly not a lot of like
hip thrusting and hip movement.
And the style of dance at this finale scene
Kenny Ortega calls it Dirty Mambo.
- Dirty Mambo.
- So it's combining ballroom, it's combining mambo,
and it's combining street style.
Dances that he did as a kid that he remembers.
Some dancing that Eleanor Bergstein remembers as a child.
The beginning of the dance when we see the basic step
is mambo, also salsa.
- Also ballroom.
- Yeah, there's many different techniques.
And everyone has their own kind of
salsa on one, salsa on two, mambo on one, mambo on two.
But it's a blend.
We're just gonna call it a happy blend.
- So now we're gonna break down the section
that we call The Carousel Section.
[humming] ♪ Open door ♪
- So it's gonna start with a half a basic.
- Prep for lift around.
Really supporting the lady.
- We come down, we do a turn
to set up for half a basic.
Crossbody lead with a turn.
Wow, that was not it.
Let's do that again.
♪ 'Til I found the truth ♪
♪ And I owe it all to you ♪
[laughing]
You gonna do the woom, woom.
- That's a dirty dancing move right there.
We got it.
- The song, Time of my Life, was recorded
by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes.
- And it was composed by Frank Previte.
- The song was such a hit it won a Grammy,
it won an Academy Award.
Yeah, it's such a classic song.
I think you hear the song and you think of the dance.
And when you see the dance you think of the song.
So it's really like so seamed together.
- So the song, Time of my Life, is basically
teased throughout the entire movie
and played simply by a piano.
And we hear it in different scenes
as Baby makes her journey.
Until the very end we have it in the final scene.
- We hear the whole lyrics.
- [Christopher] The full connection.
- The whole orchestration.
Let's break down the big finale epic Angel Lift.
She's carried down off the stage
and then she runs into Johnny.
She does a little assemble jump.
And then she just thinks about jumping
as high as she can, she arches her back.
Her right leg is on the bottom,
left leg is on the top.
And she just holds it.
- So the important part for Johnny
he separates his legs to give him
a little support underneath.
Baby runs in.
Assemble.
Finds her hipbones to balance her perfectly.
And then press up through his strong space.
And then extend the arms right overhead.
Keeping the core tight.
And holding up Baby in the Angel Lift.
And then slowly bringing her down
to cap off the wonderful moment.
- Let's see if we can do it.
Oh I slipped, sorry.
Not our best.
- Yeah it was like.
- It's like rocky, it's rocking.
- That was a great jump though.
- I'm doing the wrong leg.
She has her right leg forward.
- Oh my god. - I know.
- Missed your hips.
Let me shake it off for a second.
I think I'm getting a little tired too.
You lift me next.
[laughing]
♪ I had the time of my life ♪
♪ Oh I never felt this way before ♪
♪ Yes I swear ♪ ♪ Yes I swear ♪
♪ It's the truth ♪
♪ And I owe it all to you ♪ - Ta-da.
- So that lift, we call it, we've heard it called
the Angel Lift, the Triumph of Baby,
just that big overhead press.
It's been such a pop culture reference.
You go on YouTube, you see about
one million videos of people's weddings
and them trying to do this lift,
or doing the lift.
- Oh, the NFL commercial with Eli Manning
and Odell Beckham Junior, it's like.
- There you do the lift.
The lift is also in Crazy Stupid Love
with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
In fact, we were just at a pool the other day
and there was like a little girl, she must've been around
the age of six, and she's telling her daddy,
Daddy I wanna do the Dirty Dancing lift.
So this lift is so iconic from every generation,
every age, it is like the classic dance step of all time.
Take it from the corner.
To the top. - To the top.
Out of the corner to the top.
- Nobody puts Baby in the corner.
- Nobody, nobody.
- Favorite line.