Miranda Garrison

Miranda Garrison, an American dancer, actress and choreographer, is known above all for designing dance for movies. She was born in 1950 and started out performing, including an appearance in the 1980 film Xanadu, after which she worked repeatedly with Kenny Ortega, a choreographer who later turned to directing. On Dirty Dancing (1987) she helped Ortega with the choreography and took the part of Vivian Pressman. In Salsa (1988) she played Luna, who runs a Los Angeles salsa club, and danced numbers of her own devising; in The Forbidden Dance (1990) she again combined acting and dancing, as Mickey. Her later choreography includes Selena (1997), Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004) and The Skeleton Key (2005), and she assisted Vincent Paterson on Evita (1996). The Golden Eagle awards ceremony had her as director in 2001, and she judged the British television competition Dirty Dancing: The Time of Your Life in 2007 and 2008.