Step by Step marks Parker Stephenson’s third solo exhibition of photographs by documentarian Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. This series follows daughters and mothers at a small dancing school in a coastal town in northeastern England during the 1980s. The maternal bonding, self-expression, awkwardness and confidence provided by this joyful outlet nurture these girls and women while few other options for advancement or escape are available.
In the early 1980s Amber Films made Keeping Time, an experimental drama growing out of Konttinen’s photographs of the Connell-Brown Dancing School in North Shields. She continued to document the story, leading to the exhibition in 1984 and then a book in 1987. Housing, unemployment, poverty, divorce, hard work, are interwoven with the fun and excitement of the dancing school. It is a celebration of the importance of the school as a female community, the women’s robust combination of romanticism and pragmatism.
L. Parker Stephenson / Amber
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Step by Step
February 17 – April 22, 2017
L. Parker Stephenson Photographs
764 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10065
USA
