The senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city.
Direction
Lipitz lets the girls narrate their own stakes.
Editing
Step sequences cut like percussive warfare.
Production
Filmed during actual 2015 Baltimore uprising.
Director
Amanda Lipitz
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Lethal Ladies of Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women were a real competitive step team; the film's release helped fund the school's continued operations.
Step itself has roots in historically Black fraternities and sororities—here reclaimed as purely female, purely teen, purely Baltimore resistance.
US
