Yuki Tanaka

Yuki is seventeen, Japanese, and the granddaughter of a Hiroshima survivor. She wants to sing Freedom Tango, even when Joseph fears that a new arrangement could turn a song of captivity into spectacle. Aviva asks her to listen to what the song itself is saying.

In the current feature draft, Joseph stops her Freedom Tango at dress rehearsal before hearing it through. Yuki leaves. She returns after he admits he should have listened, but their disagreement remains and the Tango is absent from the school performance.

Before the Times Square final, Yuki and Aviva ask Simon to prepare a cue Joseph has not approved. Yuki sings their revised Tango. Joseph starts to intervene, then sits and hears the whole song. Backstage, she admits she should have told him; he acknowledges that she let him hear it.

The song behind the scene: Der tango fun Oshvientshim (the Tango of Auschwitz) carries words about camp life and a longing for freedom on the melody of the prewar Polish Niewolnicze tango. The Polish words were translated into Yiddish; the original Polish writer is unknown. Read the historical song record.

Olga Anikina wrote the Russian adaptation for this project, and Elechka sings it in this recording. Now that version is being translated into English for JEWISH. For Yuki, the question is how a new voice can carry this history without claiming it as her own.