‘And while much of the film is focused on the acclaimed dancer and educator’s process, including the uncertainty and doubt that goes into creating any form of art, Tenenbaum has smartly chosen to expand her lens to also give voice to those who are quite literally on the other side.‘

‘This examination of the artistic process is as lyrical as the work itself, and gives us an embodied centering, a new place to view identity and to question the narratives we have either inherited or ingested from our daily lives.‘

‘The film by choreographer-turned-filmmaker Tatyana Tenenbaum not only contextualizes Israeli folk dance within the cultural history of Israel and Palestine, but also contends with the embodied performance of culpability and appropriation...The resulting film is a complicated and thorny portrait of dance as a form of cultural expression that cannot exist without context.‘

‘It may only be art, but it feels like Ahuvia— and in turn Tenenbaum behind the camera— is risking a lot in trying to reconcile the history she was given with the truth she is seeking. The probability of estrangement with her mother, of misunderstandings with her artistic collaborators, and causing offense to her community and audience looms large as she attempts to revise the record.‘

‘As the film continued, I felt myself yearning for a direct encounter between the Freedom Dabka Group and Ahuvia and her collaborators. But such a meeting never materializes on screen. Because it can’t—at least not until the two groups are on equal footing.‘