Maxine Gordon gets in step with the York dancer strutting her stuff in TV's Dirty Dancing challenge.

Amy Boyes is having the time of her life.

As a contestant in TV's latest dance talent show, she literally has the world at her feet.

Amy, 21, of Haxby, is one of eight young women competing against eight men in Living TV's Dirty Dancing on Wednesday nights for a coveted place at LA's top dance agency, Bloc.

The winner will hotfoot it straight to the top of the industry; the agency works with the likes of Justin Timberlake and the Spice Girls.

The show, which started last week, invites the contestants to re-enact iconic dance scenes from the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, starring Patrick Swayze as sexy dance tutor Jonny and Jennifer Grey as teen holidaymaker, Baby.

Each week, contestants have to face a challenge and a dance contest, and one couple will be voted off the show.

Amy, who has been working as a dancer on a luxury cruise ship since graduating from the Northern Ballet School, in Manchester, last year, said it was her father, Glenn, who persuaded her to audition for the show.

"I had just broken up with my boyfriend and was on holiday with my family in Majorca when I spotted an advert in The Stage," she said.

"It said Are you sexy and single and a good dancer'. He told me to go for it."

Amy had to leave Majorca two days earlier than planned to make the audition in London. But it paid off because she was chosen for the show.

She was delighted, having failed to secure a spot in the BBC's Dance X earlier this year.

And having been a huge fan of the original film, she couldn't wait to take part in the dancing challenges.

"I love that film," said Amy, who began her dancing career with Red Shoes, in York.

"For the filming, we were based at Mountain Lake holiday resort, in Virginia, in the United States, which is where they filmed Dirty Dancing.

"It was so exciting to be on the set of the film. And it just looked exactly like it did in the movie.

"We got to stay in the same little cabins that the characters in the film stayed in and we even get to wear the same costumes that Jonny and Baby wear in the film - white jeans and shirts for the girls and high-waisted trousers for the boys."

Among the dance challenges the contestants have to face are recreations of the log-dancing scene, where Baby has to dance on some timber to learn about balance.

"In the film, Baby isn't doing much dancing on the log, but now I know why - it's because it's so hard," said Amy.

Amy believes the popularity of the film - considered to be one of the most-watched movies of all time, it spawned the Oscar-winning song (I've Had) The Time Of My Life - will pull in the punters for the TV show.

She said: "Everybody loves Dirty Dancing. So many people have watched it. But I think people will like this show, because it's a totally different reality show."

Each week, Amy and her rivals face challenges as well as dancing tasks.

Amy recalled her first test. "In the film Jonny has to work to stay at the resort, so they decided to give us jobs on the resort. The best couple would get to have first choice in picking a partner for the dance challenge. My partner David and I had to clean the kitchens, which was a nightmare. I've never had to clean an industrial kitchen before."

Amy came fourth in the challenge, putting her fourth in the pecking order to pick a dance partner for the weekly dance-off.

Obviously the better you do in the tasks the higher the chance you have of getting one of the top dancers as your partner.

Amy said the competition was fierce.

"I knew there were going to be some really great dancers there," she said. "One girl had been a dancer for Kylie. The standard was really high."

Amy said watching herself on TV was a weird experience. "You don't realise how Yorkshire' you sound until you are on TV with all these Londoners. But my family loved it, they think it's a really great show."

* Follow Amy's progress on Dirty Dancing: The Time Of Your Life, on Living, Wednesdays at 9pm.