STEP BY STEP

First published almost 40 years ago Step by Step was hugely significant in the making of the cult coming-of-age filmBilly Elliot. Lee Hall, the film's writer, gave the book to the art direction team and to those working on the film's production as a guide for making the film. As he has said, “almost every frame of Billy Elliot was somehow influenced by Step by Step.

Sirkka followed the lives of the dancing daughters and their dancing mothers over a six-year period, seeing how their dreams and their dancing came to sustain them in their tougher personal realities. Step by Step includes their insightful and witty narratives and explores their growing awareness of the challenges they face as women in a particularly challenging urban environment.

Originally published in 1989 and long out of print, this new edition has been extensively revised and extended by Sirkka.

Born in Finland, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen came to study filmmaking in London and became a founder member of Amber Film & Photography Collective, based since 1969 in Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. Sirkka’s seminal documentation ofByker, the close-knit community of Newcastle upon Tyne that was her home for seven years while destined for wholesale redevelopment led to national recognition as a key photographic and filmic account of a rich working class culture on the eve of its destruction.Her other long term projects, developed as exhibitions, books, and/or films, include Step by Step/Keeping Time, Writing in the Sand, My Finnish Roots/Letters to Katja, the Coal Coast/Song For Billy, Byker Revisited/Today I'm With You andStill Here; Byker and The Writing in the Sand winning numerous awards at international film festivals.