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Honorary Chairpersons
KENNY ORTEGA
From All Movie Guide, by Bruce Eder...
California-born dancer and choreographer Kenny Ortega had stage and television experience before working on his
first feature film, The Rose (1979) and the Olivia Newton-John/Gene Kelly disco-era musical Xanadu (1980).
During the '80s, he was associated with some of the biggest hits of the decade, especially among "youth"
movies of the period - One from the Heart (1982), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's
Day Off (both 1986), and the monster hit Dirty Dancing (1987). After co-producing Salsa (1988), he turned
to directing with Newsies, the Disney organization's ill-fated 1992 attempt to revive the movie-musical
genre, and has since then directed Hocus Pocus (1993).
