Warrior Kirkus Reviews

A former New York dancer reflects on her lavish bloom in the 70s.

Open on a 2020 Manhattan street and presented on Stanton’s New York Instagram page, Johnson, at the age of 76, shared her dynamic story as a “fiercely independent” black burlesque dancer who uses the stage name Tanker and has become a famous adult theater match. “I was the only black girl to make money from a white girl,” she boasted, telling a life story about sex and fighting a past era. Frank and Neapological, Johnson brightly captured aspects of his previous life as a stage seducer who shines in blues pieces during 18-minute kits or sewing lingerie for plus size dancers. Although her work was far from the Broadway show she dreamed of, she eventually happened to the night’s bustle to survive simply. Her anecdotes are humorous, cordial and extremely compelling, told with the passion of truly surviving and alert wit of a tired, street New Yorker. She shares stories about growing up in a violent household in Albani in the 1940s, teenage pregnancy and time in prison for robbery as endless as she remembers that she was selling G-Stunnes to Rinestone to prostitutes to ignite them in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the story alternates between the heart nostalgia for the more common side of Manhattan’s stage and fun shaking about her unconventional stage performances. Meeting various hardworking dancers, dragging queens and pimps, plus a report on the complexity of first love with Hustler drug addicted, fill the memoir with personality and honesty. With a storytelling assist from Stanton, the result is a constantly titled and commonly moving story of human struggle, as well as an inner look in the days when Times Square was considered a gloriously unintended thigh of the Big Apple. The book also includes the lush watercolor illustrations of Yee.

A blissful vicious, heartfelt look in the life of Manhattan Burlesk dancer.