Synopsis:
An early experiment for Amber, blending drama and documentary in a continuous narrative, Keeping Time explores a dancing school in North Shields, both following and fictionalising a young dancer’s life from the age of seven to seventeen. It led to Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s book and exhibition Step by Step (1989).
With one of the highest unemployment rates in the country at the time, North Shields children would get asked by their teachers: ‘You will never work, so what will you do?’ The dancing school became a place for aspiration; a bond between mothers and daughters; a meeting ground for the conflicting desires surrounding the dreams and realities of career and marriage ‘It's part of her, I think it always will be,’ reflects the mother in the film, after her daughter has given up dancing lessons and left home.
Made under the auspices of the ACTT Workshop Declaration with assistance from Northern Arts and Channel Four Television.
Synopsis:
An early experiment for Amber, blending drama and documentary in a continuous narrative, Keeping Time explores a dancing school in North Shields, both following and fictionalising a young dancer’s life from the age of seven to seventeen. It led to Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s book and exhibition Step by Step (1989).
With one of the highest unemployment rates in the country at the time, North Shields children would get asked by their teachers: ‘You will never work, so what will you do?’ The dancing school became a place for aspiration; a bond between mothers and daughters; a meeting ground for the conflicting desires surrounding the dreams and realities of career and marriage ‘It's part of her, I think it always will be,’ reflects the mother in the film, after her daughter has given up dancing lessons and left home.
Made under the auspices of the ACTT Workshop Declaration with assistance from Northern Arts and Channel Four Television.