Tags
60s music, Cinema in the park, dirty dancing, Films, Jennifer Grey, movie Dirty Dancing, movies, nostalgia, Patrick Swayze
Twenty-seven years a go I was a teenager and like so many others I fell in love with a film: Dirty Dancing. It wasn’t the leading man that did it for me, nothing against the late Patrick Swayze, nor was it the cute leading lady with the interesting nose, sorry Jennifer Grey, for me it was the music, the dancing and the fashion.
I loved all the oldies drifting through the cinema making my toes tap and and knees jiggle. Some reminded me of dancing in the living room as a child others were completely unknown, but felt like old friends. And the dancing, the scenes of beautiful young people in pretty frocks, tight pants and shiny shoes celebrating their freedom made me what to Salsa and Jive, shimmy and shake. And I remember putting my hair up into a high ponytail, wearing soft cotton runners and three-quarter length trousers. In my mind I looked and moved like I was in living in the 60s.
Not that I ever became too obsessed with the film nor have I watched it hundreds of times, but something about Dirty Dancing does seem to speak to my love of nostalgia, my inner hippie still enjoys the music and the idea that things can change, even if only on the silver screen, makes me happy. So tonight I will pack a basket of goodies, grab a rug and meet my friend in the park to watch ‘no one putting Baby in a corner’, Lisa look for her ‘beige iridescent lipstick’ and Baby carry watermelons under a nightly Dublin sky.
jensinewall 