Keeping Time
Amber Films 1983
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.
While researching material for Tyne Lives (1980), Amber were introduced to the Connell-Brown dancing school in North Shields. A team set out to make a straight documentary film about the dancing school, found themselves in a quandary as to what to say with the shot material, and shelved it. Sirkka continued with the photographic project that was to become Step by Step. Her images and her conversations with the mothers and daughters eventually formed a basis for the film script.
AMBER FILMS
Made under the auspices of the ACTT Workshop Declaration with financial assistance from Northern Arts and Channel Four Television.
Location
Connell-Brown Dance School, North Shields; elsewhere in North Shields; the skies above the North East of Englan
Credits
Script, Direction, Editing: Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen & Peter Roberts
Additional Direction: Murray Martin
Photography: Peter Roberts & Peter Woodhouse
Production Manager: Lorna Powell
Designer: Judith Tomlinson
Continuity: Sarah McCarthy
Sound: Graham Denman & Elaine Drainville
Still Photographs: Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen
Thanks to: Margaret & John of Connell-Brown Dance Studio, North Shields; the students and their mothers for their help & patience; British Theatre Dance Association; North Tyneside Housing Department; Sunderland Flying Club; Sunderland Parachute Club.
Made under the auspices of the ACTT Workshop Declaration
Financial assistance from Channel 4
Cast
ACTORS
Lisa: Lisa Hynes
Young Lisa: Jill Ainsley
Mam: Amber Styles
Dad: Art Davies
AS THEMSELVES
Students and teachers at the Connell-Brown Dance School, North Shields
Keywords
Jobs, North East, North Shields, Photography, Post-Industrial, river, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Tyne, Unemployment, Dance, Dancing, Dance School, Mothers, Daughters, Parachute
Associated Work
RELATED WORK:
Step by Step, photographic exhibition and book by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. Follow links to see a free online presentation of the photographs or to buy the book.
Interiors, photographs by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. Follow link to see a free online presentation.
Tyne Lives (Amber Films, 1980, AF/TLI), documentary drama featuring early work with the Connell-Brown dance school.
For a monthly changing selection of films and videos by Amber and its friends, visit www.sidetv.net.
For more information about Amber and its film and photographic work, visit www.amber-online.com