Dirty Dancing!

Read  the City Paper article  by Anna Ditkoff from March 24, 2010! A short clip from an on-the-sly audience member is here.

Why Dirty Dancing:

The idea for a B’more style theatrical rendition of Dirty Dancing came to director Claire Cote while watching the film with friends late one summer night.  “We noticed how the film’s ‘eighties does the sixties’ fashion is revived in today’s ‘hipster’ trends. This triggered the endless possibilities of creating our own spin on the classic dance film,” recalls Cote.

The original plot is left more or less intact, satirizing the archetypal dance film plot also found in Flashdance, Center Stage, and Step Up of dancing-as-good vs dancing-as-evil, establishment vs anti-establishment, romance that transcends class boundaries and the requisite musical montage of training, sweating, and leg warmers. In the Effervescent Collective version, Baby is shadowed by a trio of “Babyettes,” the dance scenes last through entire songs, and oh yeah...Johnny is played by a chick (Savannah Reich) and Baby is played by a dude (Jake Dibeler). Not all of this was intentional. According to Susskind, “It just happened. We found wildly talented and hilarious people. We arranged them in the way that made the most sense to us as dancers who like to laugh and play. When you let go of convention, and take a moment to appreciate the quirks and talent of what you have, inventive and hilarious things can happen.” 

Cote knew from the start the music had to be live, emphasizing the Motown tracks from the film.  She spoke with Aran Keating of The Motorettes in the fall, while they were both working on another Baltimore DIY production, GründleHämmer.  “Live music to accompany live dance is such a crucial element; these art forms go hand in hand,” says Cote.  In addition to live music from The Motorettes, the production features a painted backdrop by local artist Kathleen Pumphrey, and dancers from a collection of local dance and cabaret ensembles. Emily LiMandri of Natty Paints designed to speaks-for-itself logo for the show: the original Baby (Jennifer Grey) riding a neon watermelon. Reserving tickets ahead of time is recommended but tickets will be available at the door if the show does not sell out.