Dirty Dancing was Emile Ardolino's feature-film directorial debut. He along with writer Eleanor Bergstein and producer Linda Gottlieb created the vision for what would become the visual story of the film. It's clear that dancing was vital to the film's core story, but more than that it was dancing that went beyond what was appropriate, meaning that the sequences needed to reveal the expression of a human being who has been under lock and key by their family for their whole life. Baby's evolution from the do-right young lady of Mr. and Mrs. Houseman to a fully expressive, alive and on fire woman in love.
We can see the beginning of Baby's journey through dance clearly when she walks into a party in the Catskills as everyone "dirty dances" to "Do You Love Me". She's never seen anything like this, and Ardolino shows her as an uncomfortable young lady walking through a sea of people expressing themselves sexually in their dancing, and when Johnny arrives he's electric. And we see that he sparks her as well.
And we transition from there to her performing on the main stage with Johnny as they stun and enliven the old crowd to wipe the dust off their bones and join them in moving their bodies. Ardolino captures two people who represent the repressed, either by class or family structures, bring about the joy of their lives unafraid of the consequences of the society that "rules" them. Dirty Dancing is a beloved film because thematically it wrings true to life and the struggle to overcome a ruling hand and censorship...well, it matters to this day.
