It is the turbulent 1980s in apartheid South Africa, when even the ordinary life is full of danger and uncertainty. What will tomorrow bring? Tihelo, a thirteen-year-old girl, lives with her older sister Keitumetse and their mother Kgomotso. Kgomotso works as a maid for a white household in the city and has to depend on the neighbours to keep an eye on the girls; one day she does not come home. Dancing in the Dust is a moving story of growing up in a fearful, oppressive society, where the only comfort for the young is dream and romance, and the only free option that of rebellion.