E-Mail This Article to a Friend Cuba libre Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights changes partners BY PETER KEOUGH

Back in 1987, Dirty Dancing came out of nowhere to excite audiences with its soft-boiled Romeo-and-Juliet story about a mousy rich girl (Jennifer Gray) in the still-repressed early ’60s who’s transformed into a dance champion by Patrick Swayze’s rockin’ hips. The film, though, was a Flashdance in the pan: it didn’t spawn a resurgence in the movie musical (leave it to Chicago for that, if indeed it has) or even a sequel. Until now: Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.

"It’s not a sequel," says the film’s producer, local filmmaker Sarah Green. "It’s Dirty Dancing, ‘colon,’ not ‘II.’ I saw the original film when it first came out and loved it, but we didn’t want to try to repeat its magic. This one takes place five years earlier and is totally different. But it does have the theme of people from different worlds coming together and having the world pull them apart. And it’s a story about first love."

Oh and it’s also a story about Castro’s Cuban Revolution. Not as easy a topic to tap-dance around as class differences in the Catskills. That’s where Green comes in, with her knack for combining the political and the entertaining, as she demonstrated in John Sayles’s City of Hope and Julie Taymor’s Frida. Also helping her cause was the source of the story — a real episode in the life of co-producer and choreographer JoAnn Jensen. "She was a young American dancer in Cuba in the late ’50s who fell in love with a Cuban boy and had to leave when the Revolution came. That was her experience of first love, and she never forgot him. So there needed to be a balance between a story that is non-political — first love, teenagers, and dancing — and a story that is political — Cuba on the eve of Revolution. A story that is entertaining and fun, and yet you get the sense of something much bigger in the background."

It’s that something bigger in the background that might unsettle some American audiences. Green understands that people might not be fans of Castro but believes they can sympathize with the feelings that brought him to power. "The Revolution was the hope of the Cuban people, and it’s extraordinary that people would rise up and follow this charismatic leader and make a change. When the Revolution comes, they are thrilled, and so are we, because it really seems their life is going to change. Now we have the benefit of hindsight, that it changed in a way that wasn’t expected. So we just filter that in; we don’t know if it’s going to change, but we hope it does."

Could be a tough sell in Miami. But then, there’s the engaging cast: Romola Garai, who made such a strong impression in the underrated I Captured the Castle, and Diego Luna, who sizzled in Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón’s hit Y tu mamá también. And, of course, the dancing and the music.

"One of the things we worked with is the ’50s music that we all recognize, and there’s some of that in the film — the big-band stuff," says Green, who collaborated with famed Arista Records founder Clive Davis in developing the soundtrack. "But there’s also some of this wonderful Latin dance music. We worked to have a balance of ’50s and modern Latin music. And it does lend itself to a very good blend. I’m very pleased because it makes that traditional music very accessible."

Cuba today remains cut off from most Americans by US policy; Havana Nights was shot in Puerto Rico. Does Green see a change?

"Not yet. Any minute now. But not yet. I believe so. I have mixed feelings about it. We need to open the doors there. Absolutely. But I dread the first McDonald’s."

Sarah Green will appear at a benefit screening of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights in support of local filmmaker Henry Ferrini at the Loews Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers next Friday, February 27, at 7 p.m. The film will open in Boston on that date at theaters to be announced.