While the an infant she obtained dancing training of a good Mrs. Thorp into the midtown Manhattan. Up to 1897, after graduating regarding Thorp’s dancing college or university, she toured temporarily that have Black colored Patti’s Troubadours. Good girlfriend acceptance their so you can model to have an advertising with Bert Williams and you can George Walker, that has merely scored a knock in their vaudeville first within Koster and you will Bial’s Tunes Hall. She accessible to model with the ad and you can then inserted the guys to help you dancing from the cakewalk finale. Immediately following joining John W. Isham’s Octoroon, a critic on Indianapolis Freeman announced, “I’d just noticed the most effective girl performer.” With Sophistication Halliday she designed this new sibling dance act from Overton and you can Halliday. They performed because group of Honolulu Belles regarding the Williams and you can Walkers’ The policy Users (1899), and following that, Overton started to produce as the a beneficial soloist with increased large spots. Regarding the songs comedy The fresh Sons out of Ham (1900) she done and you may danced “Skip Hannah off Savannah” and you may “Top Woman”; and also in its next edition, “Society” and you may “Sparkling Ruby” which delivered her jubilant acclaim. James Weldon Johnson penned you to definitely she “had a minimal-pitched voice that have an organic sob in order to they, and this she knew how to use that have advising impact in getting more than a track” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher remembered their unique since an artist just who did ragtime sounds and you will ballads just as well; so that as a performer “exactly who you will manage everything, with no count in the event it was dollars-and-side, cakewalk, if not some form of grotesque moving . . . she lent the fresh results a neat gracefulness of movement unsurpassed of the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
Inside 1910, she registered the latest Wise Lay, a black theatrical business, and you can starred in Their Prize brand new Barber (1911)
On the Summer twenty two, 1899, following closing away from A fortunate Coon, new ragtime music revealed because of the Ann Charters once the “an effective hodge-podge of the things from the ‘coon’ line regarding money-dance and ragtime tunes to help you choices regarding huge opera,” Overton married George Walker; its commitment carry out changes and you can elevate the brand new cakewalk out-of a center African-American folks moving towards a black colored modernist term, a top Rumence kadД±n art worth being performed just before royalty, into the light elite, and on the fresh new show stage.
One to nights when you find yourself onstage, George Walker, to try out this new role out of Bud Jenkins, turned into unwell
Williams and you can Walker’s Dahomey (1903) try among the first black colored musicals to know the fresh cakewalk’s transformation. With it, Aida (she altered brand new spelling out of their label from Ada so you’re able to Aida, the name of your Haitian lwa regarding virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot having a highlighted unicamente, “I want to Be a genuine Lady,” plus the “Cakewalk Finale,” partnered because of the their particular spouse. “The new line, the new elegance, new assured ecstasy of them performers, whom bent more than backwards until its heads almost touched the ground, a task demanding an unbelievable amount of strength, the eager prancing, almost in slow-motion, have not come equaled in this particular revel, aside from exceeded,” authored Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey is actually brought to London, in which it had been exhibited within a demand overall performance prior to Queen Edward VII at the Buckingham Castle. Uk high society observed the Regal Household members that have a great pouring enthusiasm getting cakewalking. The business returned to Nyc with a new style of the fresh music named Inside Dahomey, and therefore unwrapped from the Grand Opera (1904).
Inside Williams and you can Walker’s second inform you, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker try both a dancer therefore the show’s choreographer. She is actually second searched inside and you will staged the brand new audio wide variety to possess Bandanna Residential property (1908). His periods have been later on diagnosed since syphilis. Inside 1909 the guy left the brand new let you know, with his part is actually rewritten getting Overton Walker, whom donned their showy outfits and you may carried out his wide variety, and their biggest tune, “Bon bon Buddie.” With her husband’s position more sluggish extracting, and you may up against in which their unique coming lay, she chosen not to renew their own offer which have Williams and you may Walker and you may alternatively joined the brand new shed from Bob Cole and you will J. Rosamonde Johnson’s New Reddish Moonlight (1909) in which she is actually searched in two music quantity: “Pheobe Brown” and “Pickaninny Days,” dance dollars-and-wing towards chorus. She 2nd unsealed at The newest York’s American Movie theater that have an effective vaudeville work presenting an alternative dance, the new “Kara Kara,” otherwise moving l’Afrique.
