Just like the a baby she obtained dance tuition from a great Mrs. Thorp inside the midtown Manhattan. Doing 1897, after graduating out-of Thorp’s dance school, she toured temporarily having Black colored Patti’s Troubadours. A girlfriend allowed their unique to help you model to have an advertisement that have Bert Williams and you will George Walker, who’d merely obtained a knock within vaudeville debut at the Koster and you may Bial’s Tunes Hallway. She agreed to model to the advertising and you will after that inserted the brand new dudes so you can moving from the cakewalk finale. Shortly after joining John W. Isham’s Octoroon, an effective critic into Indianapolis Freeman announced, “I experienced merely observed the very best girl dancer.” Which have Grace Halliday she molded the sibling dancing operate out of Overton and Halliday. They did since pair of Honolulu Belles regarding Williams and you will Walkers’ The insurance policy Participants (1899), and following that, Overton started initially to create because the good soloist with an increase of good-sized opportunities. In the songs comedy The fresh new Sons away from Ham (1900) she sang and you will danced “Skip Hannah off Savannah” and “Best Woman”; and in its second model, “Society” and you can “Sparkling Ruby” and that introduced their own jubilant acclaim. James Weldon Johnson authored one she “got the lowest-pitched voice that have an organic sob to they, and therefore she knew making use of that have informing impact during the placing more than a song” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher appreciated their unique as a musician who performed ragtime tunes and ballads just as well; and as a performer “just who you are going to perform every little thing, and no matter if this are buck-and-wing, cakewalk, if not some type of grotesque dancing . . . she lent the fresh overall performance a neat gracefulness of movement unsurpassed from the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
In 1910, she registered the new Smart Put, a black colored theatrical business, and you may starred in Their Prize the Barber (1911)
Towards the June 22, 1899, following closure of A lucky Coon, brand new ragtime sounds revealed of the Ann Charters since the “good hodge-podge of all things throughout the ‘coon’ range of dollar-dancing and you can ragtime melodies so you’re able to alternatives from the grand opera,” Overton hitched George Walker; their partnership would change and you can elevate the brand new cakewalk out of a core African-Western someone moving on the a black modernist phrase, a premier art worth being performed ahead of royalty, to the white professional, and on the latest concert stage.
That night if you find yourself onstage, George Walker, to try out the fresh new character out-of Bud Jenkins, turned ill
Williams and you may Walker’s Dahomey (1903) are one of the primary black musicals to uncover the fresh cakewalk’s transformation. Inside it, Aida (she altered brand new spelling out-of their identity out-of Ada to help you Aida, the name of your Haitian lwa out-of virility) played Rosetta Lightfoot that have a presented solamente, “I would like to Become a bona fide Woman,” additionally the “Cakewalk Finale,” married from the her husband. “The latest range, the fresh new elegance, the newest assured ecstasy ones performers, just who curved more than backward until its minds nearly touched the floor, a task demanding an amazing quantity of stamina, its eager prancing, almost during the slow motion, have never been equaled in this particular revel, let alone exceeded,” composed Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey is delivered to London area, in which it had been showed on a command overall performance prior to King Edward VII in the Buckingham Palace. Uk high society used brand new Royal Members of the family having a good gushing warmth to possess cakewalking. The firm returned to Ny with a new kind of the latest sounds called In Dahomey, which unwrapped at Grand Opera (1904).
Inside Williams and Walker’s 2nd let you know, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker is actually one another a performer and show’s choreographer. She is next searched inside the and you will staged the brand new musical wide variety having Bandanna Home (1908). His periods have been later diagnosed since the syphilis. For the 1909 he kept the latest let you know, with his character is rewritten to possess Overton Walker, who donned their flashy outfits and you may sang his wide variety, also their big song, “Bon bon Buddie.” Along with her husband’s reputation slowly extracting, and up against in which their unique upcoming set, she selected to not ever replenish their own deal that have Williams and you will Walker and you will alternatively registered the newest shed regarding Bob Cole and you can J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The newest Red-colored Moon (1909) in which she try searched in 2 music quantity: “Pheobe Brownish” and you may “Pickaninny Weeks,” moving buck-and-side towards chorus. She 2nd open from the The fresh new York’s Western Theatre with good vaudeville operate presenting a new moving, brand new “Kara Kara,” or dance l’Afrique.
