Because the an infant she received dancing instruction regarding an excellent Mrs. Thorp from inside the midtown Manhattan. To 1897, once graduating of Thorp’s moving university, she toured briefly with Black colored Patti’s Troubadours. An excellent girlfriend enjoy her so you can model having an advertising that have Bert Williams and you will George Walker, that has simply scored a bump in their vaudeville debut from the Koster and Bial’s Songs Hall. She provided to design on offer and next entered the newest men so you can dance in the cakewalk finale. Immediately following signing up for John W. Isham’s Octoroon, a great critic to the Indianapolis Freeman announced, “I experienced only observed the number one girl dancer.” Having Grace Halliday she molded the latest sibling moving work off Overton and you can Halliday. They performed given that set of Honolulu Belles throughout the Williams and you may Walkers’ The insurance policy Players (1899), and you can after that, Overton began to establish because the good soloist with increased substantial jobs. In the songs comedy The Sons out-of Ham (1900) she carried out and you can danced “Skip Hannah out of Savannah” and “Best Woman”; plus its next model, “Society” and “Gleaming Ruby” and this brought her jubilant acclaim. James Weldon Johnson composed one she “got a decreased-pitched voice that have an organic sob in order to it, hence she know ways to use having informing feeling inside getting over a tune” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher recalled her given that a musician which performed ragtime music and you may ballads just as well; so that as a performer “exactly who you certainly will carry out every little thing, no amount when it is actually dollar-and-wing, cakewalk, if you don’t some type of grotesque dance . . . she lent the fresh new overall performance a nice gracefulness of motion unparalleled from the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
Into the 1910, she joined the latest Wise Place, a black colored theatrical business, and you may starred in His Prize the newest Barber (1911)
To your June twenty two, 1899, following the closing off A fortunate Coon, brand new ragtime audio explained from the Ann Charters once the “an excellent hodge-podge of everything on ‘coon’ line away from buck-dancing and you will ragtime tunes so you can alternatives on the huge opera,” Overton married George Walker; the partnership manage alter and you may intensify this new cakewalk out of a core African-American folks dance towards a black colored modernist phrase, a premier art value are performed before royalty, towards light dating site for Visakhapatnam women elite group, as well as on this new concert stage.
One night while onstage, George Walker, to play the newest part regarding Bud Jenkins, turned into ill
Williams and you will Walker’s Dahomey (1903) is actually one of the primary black musicals to find out the brand new cakewalk’s conversion. In it, Aida (she altered the newest spelling of their name out of Ada so you can Aida, the name of Haitian lwa out of fertility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot which have a presented solo, “I wish to Getting a genuine Lady,” and also the “Cakewalk Finale,” married by the her husband. “The newest line, new sophistication, the new hoping euphoria of these performers, whom curved more than backwards until the minds nearly handled the ground, a task demanding an unbelievable amount of electricity, their eager prancing, almost in the slow motion, have-not started equaled in this revel, not to mention surpassed,” typed Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey are delivered to London, where it had been displayed at the a demand show before King Edward VII within Buckingham Palace. United kingdom high-society accompanied the newest Regal Family with an excellent pouring love to own cakewalking. The organization gone back to Nyc with a new particular this new audio named Within the Dahomey, hence unwrapped at Grand Opera (1904).
When you look at the Williams and you can Walker’s 2nd let you know, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker try each other a dancer additionally the show’s choreographer. She are next searched inside the and you can staged the fresh new music quantity having Bandanna Homes (1908). His episodes have been afterwards identified since the syphilis. From inside the 1909 the guy leftover this new inform you, with his role are rewritten for Overton Walker, just who donned his fancy outfits and you will sang his number, and additionally their big tune, “Bon-bon Buddie.” Together with her husband’s reputation more sluggish wearing down, and you will confronted with in which her future set, she picked never to replace their unique package that have Williams and Walker and you may as an alternative entered the fresh new cast away from Bob Cole and you may J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The fresh Purple Moon (1909) in which she are appeared in two musical wide variety: “Pheobe Brownish” and you can “Pickaninny Weeks,” moving money-and-side for the chorus. She 2nd established on Brand new York’s Western Movie theater that have a great vaudeville work presenting yet another moving, the latest “Kara Kara,” otherwise dancing l’Afrique.