A brand-new edition of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s classic photobook, Step by Step, could soon be released thanks to a Kickstarter campaign by independent publisher Dewi Lewis.
First published in 1989 and long out of print, the book is a study of girls and their mothers at a dancing school in North Shields, in north-east England, and their later lives after leaving the school. Konttinen’s images, captured between 1981 and 1987, explore how the girls’ dreams and dancing came to sustain them in their tougher realities. The book includes their insightful and witty narratives and explores their growing awareness of the challenges they face as women in a particularly challenging urban environment.
The book was hugely significant in the making of the cult coming-of-age film Billy Elliot. Lee Hall, the film’s writer, gave the book to the art direction team and all those working on the production as a guide for making the film. In 2009 he wrote that ‘almost every frame of Billy Elliot was somehow influenced by Step by Step.’
Born in Finland, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s came to London to study filmmaking and became a founder member of Amber Film & Photography Collective, based since 1969 in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her seminal documentation of Byker, the close-knit community 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.
The new edition of Step by Step has been extensively revised by Konttinen and will be printed in tritone to ensure the highest image quality. To back the project, see the Kickstarter campaign here. A signed copy of the book costs £45 and there are many other options, including bundled copies of Step by Step and the iconic Byker for £75.
If the project reaches its goal by 5 May, copies of the book are set to be delivered in August.
If you are a fan of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, you can read her interview with Matty Graham in B+W 280, available as a digital edition via Pocketmags for £2.49.