Due to the fact a baby she acquired dancing training out of an excellent Mrs. Thorp for the midtown New york. Up to 1897, just after graduating out of Thorp’s dance college, she toured briefly that have Black colored Patti’s Troubadours. An excellent girlfriend anticipate their own in order to design to possess an advertising that have Bert Williams and George Walker, who had merely scored a knock within their vaudeville debut at Koster and you may Bial’s Tunes Hallway. She agreed to model on post and after that registered the latest dudes so you’re able to dance from the cakewalk finale. Shortly after joining John W. Isham’s Octoroon, an excellent critic with the Indianapolis Freeman announced, “I experienced simply observed the number one girl dancer.” Having Grace Halliday she designed brand new sister moving act from Overton and you will Halliday. They performed since collection of Honolulu Belles on Williams and you may Walkers’ The policy Participants (1899), and from that point, Overton started initially to develop because the a great soloist with good positions. On songs comedy Brand new Sons out of Ham (1900) she carried out and you may danced “Skip Hannah out of Savannah” and you may “Leading Woman”; along with its second release, “Society” and you may “Gleaming Ruby” and this introduced their own jubilant recognition. James Weldon Johnson wrote you to definitely she “had a decreased-pitched sound having a natural sob so you’re able to it, hence she realized how to use that have telling perception during the getting over a track” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher recalled her once the a musician just who did ragtime audio and you may ballads as well; so when a performer “just who you may manage every little thing, and no count in the event it try dollars-and-side, cakewalk, otherwise some form of grotesque dance . . . she lent this new results a neat gracefulness of motion unparalleled by the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
When you look at the 1910, she joined the fresh new Wise Lay, a black theatrical organization, and you may appeared in Their Award this new Barber (1911)
With the June twenty two, 1899, following closure out-of A fortunate Coon, this new ragtime tunes explained of the Ann Charters as the “a hodge-podge of all things throughout the ‘coon’ range regarding buck-dance and ragtime tunes to help you options throughout the huge opera,” Overton partnered George Walker; its union perform change and you can elevate the new cakewalk out of a key African-American someone dancing to the a black modernist phrase, a high artwork worth getting performed ahead of royalty, into light top-notch, asiacharm gelinleri as well as on the newest show stage.
One to night when you are onstage, George Walker, to experience this new role out-of Bud Jenkins, turned into sick
Williams and you will Walker’s Dahomey (1903) is one of the first black musicals to find out the fresh new cakewalk’s conversion. Inside, Aida (she altered this new spelling from her term out of Ada so you can Aida, the name of your Haitian lwa from fertility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot with a highlighted unicamente, “I do want to End up being a real Lady,” while the “Cakewalk Finale,” married because of the her husband. “The newest range, the newest grace, the newest hoping ecstasy of these performers, whom curved more than backward until its minds almost touched the ground, a feat requiring an incredible number of fuel, its keen prancing, almost from inside the slow motion, have never been equaled in this particular revel, let-alone exceeded,” composed Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey is actually taken to London, where it absolutely was showed at the a command overall performance ahead of Queen Edward VII during the Buckingham Castle. United kingdom high-society used the newest Regal Family unit members with a good pouring love having cakewalking. The firm gone back to Ny with a brand new type of the brand new sounds entitled For the Dahomey, and this established in the Huge Opera (1904).
When you look at the Williams and Walker’s second inform you, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker is each other a dancer and the show’s choreographer. She are second searched during the and you can staged the tunes quantity for Bandanna Home (1908). His attacks were later recognized since syphilis. Inside the 1909 he left the new inform you, along with his part try rewritten having Overton Walker, just who donned his flashy clothes and you can performed his number, including his significant song, “Bon bon Buddie.” Along with her husband’s status slow wearing down, and you will facing in which her coming lay, she chose to not replace their deal with Williams and Walker and you will as an alternative inserted the fresh new shed away from Bob Cole and J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The new Reddish Moon (1909) where she try featured in two tunes wide variety: “Pheobe Brownish” and “Pickaninny Days,” moving buck-and-side toward chorus. She next established from the The York’s American Movie theater that have a beneficial vaudeville operate featuring another type of dancing, the brand new “Kara Kara,” otherwise dance l’Afrique.