Due to the fact a child she received moving training from a good Mrs. Thorp during the midtown New york. Doing 1897, after graduating from Thorp’s dancing college, she toured briefly with Black colored Patti’s Troubadours. An effective girlfriend invited their own to help you model having a marketing having Bert Williams and you may George Walker, that has simply obtained a knock within vaudeville debut during the Koster and you can Bial’s Songs Hallway. She wanted to design with the post and you may then entered the fresh guys so you’re able to dancing regarding the cakewalk finale. Shortly after signing up for John W. Isham’s Octoroon, a great critic into the Indianapolis Freeman stated, “I had simply seen best girl dancer.” Having Elegance Halliday she designed the fresh new cousin moving act out of Overton and you may Halliday. It did since the collection of Honolulu Belles from the Williams and you can Walkers’ The insurance policy Users (1899), and you will from that point, Overton began to generate once the a soloist with more substantial positions. About tunes funny The latest Sons off Ham (1900) she carried out and you will danced “Miss Hannah off Savannah” and you can “Leading Woman”; along with their second edition, “Society” and you will “Sparkling Ruby” which delivered their unique jubilant recognition. James Weldon Johnson published that she “had a minimal-pitched sound with a natural sob so you can they, and therefore she understood the way you use with advising feeling within the placing more than a track” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher appreciated her just like the a singer exactly Umea women who performed ragtime songs and you will ballads just as well; so when a dancer “which you may perform almost everything, and no amount if this is actually dollars-and-side, cakewalk, if you don’t some kind of grotesque dance . . . she borrowed the fresh performance a cool gracefulness of motion unparalleled by the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
From inside the 1910, she registered this new Smart Lay, a black theatrical providers, and you can appeared in His Award the fresh Barber (1911)
Into June twenty-two, 1899, after the closing off A fortunate Coon, this new ragtime music discussed of the Ann Charters because “a good hodge-podge of all things throughout the ‘coon’ range regarding money-moving and you will ragtime tunes to selections on huge opera,” Overton partnered George Walker; the commitment create change and you will intensify this new cakewalk away from a key African-American men moving to your a black colored modernist expression, a premier ways really worth getting did prior to royalty, on white top-notch, as well as on the new performance stage.
That evening while you are onstage, George Walker, to tackle the fresh new character out-of Bud Jenkins, turned ill
Williams and Walker’s Dahomey (1903) is one of the first black colored musicals to locate the cakewalk’s sales. Involved, Aida (she altered the brand new spelling out-of their title of Ada to Aida, title of your own Haitian lwa out-of virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot having a highlighted solamente, “I want to Getting a real Woman,” while the “Cakewalk Finale,” married from the her partner. “New line, the elegance, the fresh new in hopes ecstasy of them dancers, exactly who curved more backwards until the brains nearly handled the ground, an accomplishment demanding an unbelievable level of strength, their keen prancing, nearly within the slow-motion, haven’t already been equaled in this particular revel, not to mention surpassed,” published Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey are delivered to London area, where it absolutely was exhibited within a demand show ahead of King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace. British high society implemented the fresh new Regal Family members having a beneficial pouring love having cakewalking. The business returned to New york with a new sorts of this new songs called For the Dahomey, and this open from the Grand Opera (1904).
Inside Williams and you can Walker’s second tell you, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker is actually one another a performer and the show’s choreographer. She try second searched within the and you can staged the audio quantity to have Bandanna Home (1908). Their episodes had been later identified because the syphilis. During the 1909 the guy leftover the fresh new tell you, and his role try rewritten to have Overton Walker, exactly who donned his fancy attire and you may carried out their numbers, including their biggest track, “Bon bon Buddie.” Along with her partner’s reputation slower wearing down, and you can up against where their particular upcoming place, she picked not to ever replace their bargain having Williams and you may Walker and as an alternative entered the brand new throw out-of Bob Cole and you may J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The fresh new Yellow Moon (1909) in which she is actually searched in two songs number: “Pheobe Brown” and you may “Pickaninny Days,” dancing buck-and-wing towards the chorus. She next launched within The new York’s American Movie theater having a vaudeville act presenting another dancing, the “Kara Kara,” or dance l’Afrique.
