I Went To A "Dirty Dancing" Festival And It Made Me Cry

The BuzzFeed website recently published an article, written by Elisabeth Donnelly, titled I Went To A Dirty Dancing Festival And It Made Me Cry. The article included the following passages:

.... I tried dancing, but it felt like I was doing it wrong. I could count about eight or so women dressed up as Baby in pink tank tops and jean shorts. There were even more women in clean white pairs of Keds, perfect for taking their first tentative steps with their own Johnny Castles. Folks paired off: husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, female friends, dancing with each other, Johnnys leading and spinning around their Babys. ...

Benjamin and I watched women and men sigh over Patrick Swayze all weekend long. This was perhaps best embodied by two women who walked up to Benjamin's booth, curious about what was going on.

“Is this your first time at the festival?” Benjamin asked them.

They nodded.

“Where did you come from?”

“Turkey!” they replied, in unison.

“Why did you travel so far?” she asked.

“Patrick Swayze!” they said.

Indeed the festival had one particular characterization that set it apart: The audience was, well, crazy for Swayze. He embodied a sensitive masculinity that women could swoon over and the men at the festival could say, yes, I like him. That particular combination of masculinity and struggle is hard to find in an actor ...

Before the screening of Dirty Dancing, the crowd sang happy birthday to Swayze (it was Aug. 18, after all) and cut up a big cake in his honor.

... and ...

The more people I talked to about Dirty Dancing, the clearer picture I got about how a small movie became nearly canonical, even if this particular crowd leaned toward a specific white Southern demographic. When I talked to people in their late twenties and early thirties, I heard the letters “VHS” over and over again. The title played a role as well — if you’re a kid, doesn’t a movie called Dirty Dancing seem, well, inappropriate and thus intriguing?

Dirty Dancing had reach: There were grandmothers and mothers and daughters, who all pressed the film on their daughters at the right time. There were groups of friends in their sixties and beyond who saw the movie over and over thanks to the music.

A 36-year-old man in a Swayze tank top that depicted the actor in his surfer-guru role of Bodhi from Point Break talked about how he watched Dirty Dancing over and over on cable. I chatted a bit with a group of women in matching fabulous red-and-purple headbands, all part of The Red Hat Society of North Carolina, a social group for women over 50, where they picked this festival as their monthly outing.

Rachel Coleman, 31, from Roanoke Virginia, and her friends wore matching pink tanks that read “Camp Coleman.” The festival was one stop on her bachelorette party weekend. This festival’s focus on Swayze, and the fact that money goes to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, held particular meaning for Coleman and her sister. They first watched the film with their mother, who recently died from pancreatic cancer. They watched the film all the time growing up, “although it disappeared for a little bit when we got older,” Coleman noted. “It’s already nostalgic because it’s the ’60s depicted in the ’80s, and you already have that feeling when you see it.” ...

... and ...

One of several photographs in the article

The festival ended with a lake lift competition. A group of young couples, some who seemed shipped in for this exact moment, went gamely into the water and played at being Baby and Johnny for the span of seconds. It was a series of quick lifts — until the next to last couple. After their lift, the man got on bended knee in the cove. A whoop went up from the crowd. She said yes to the proposal, and threw herself into his arms. It was sweet and romantic, imagining a world where Baby and Johnny stayed together.

For me, however, that proposal paled in comparison to the re-creation of the Kellerman’s talent show. The Asheville Ballet dancers led a troupe of game festivalgoers in re-creating each zippy song and dance move for the audience. People stumbled. People forgot the steps. People looked around, desperately, at the dancer in order to see what they were doing.

The last song at the talent show was “Time of My Life.” Fake Johnny and Fake Baby, the dancers who had spent all day giving lessons under the tent, took to the checkerboard stage to re-create the last dance in the movie. The festivalgoers joined in, serving as Johnny’s backup, dancing for that moment where love is real and two people can overcome everything in order to be together.

Then fake Johnny lifted fake Baby up in a lift. The Lift. She floated above the crowd, her tulle skirt fluttering. It was a gorgeous, graceful sight. I got a little bit weepy seeing the absolute joy on the faces of the dancing festival-goers. For a moment, they weren’t in Lake Lure. For a moment, they were in Kellerman’s. ...