Miranda Garrison

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]

• Miranda Garrison at IMDb
• Dirty Dancing, The E! True Hollywood Story, first aired September 3, 2000
• Begg, Ken. "Lambada & The Forbidden Dance". Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension. Archived from the original on April 17, 2007. Retrieved April 2, 2019.