Just like the a baby she obtained moving tuition regarding an excellent Mrs. Thorp during the midtown Manhattan. To 1897, once graduating regarding Thorp’s dancing college or university, she toured briefly which have Black Patti’s Troubadours. An excellent girlfriend welcome their to help you design getting an advertisement which have Bert Williams and you will George Walker, who had just obtained a hit within their vaudeville debut from the Koster and Bial’s Tunes Hall. She accessible to design with the advertising and you can subsequently joined the brand new guys to dancing about cakewalk finale. Just after signing up for John W. Isham’s Octoroon, a good critic towards the Indianapolis Freeman stated, ”I experienced just noticed the most effective girl dancer.” With Grace Halliday she formed the newest cousin dance act of Overton and you will Halliday. It did given that pair of Honolulu Belles regarding Williams and Walkers’ The policy Users (1899), and you can from there, Overton started initially to establish as the a great soloist with increased good-sized roles. On audio funny This new Sons regarding Ham (1900) she performed and you may danced ”Miss Hannah out of Savannah” and you will ”Top Lady”; and also in the second version, ”Society” and ”Gleaming Ruby” hence lead their particular jubilant acclaim. James Weldon Johnson authored that she ”got a low-pitched voice which have an organic sob to help you it, which she understood making use of having telling perception into the placing more a song” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher recalled their own because a musician exactly who did ragtime songs and you may ballads equally well; and as a dancer ”just who you will manage everything, no matter in the event it are dollar-and-wing, cakewalk, otherwise some kind of grotesque dancing . . . she lent the fresh performance a neat gracefulness of movement unparalleled by the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
Inside 1910, she registered the fresh new Wise Set, a black colored theatrical organization, and starred in Their Honor this new Barber (1911)
Toward Summer twenty-two, 1899, after the closing regarding A lucky Coon, the ragtime audio demonstrated by the Ann Charters while the ”a good hodge-podge of everything on ’coon’ range from dollar-moving and ragtime melodies so you can alternatives regarding huge opera,” Overton hitched George Walker; the relationship perform changes and you can intensify brand new cakewalk from a center African-American everyone moving into a black modernist phrase, a high artwork worth becoming did in advance of royalty, into light elite, as well as on the show stage.
You to definitely nights while onstage, George Walker, to play the newest role out of Bud Jenkins, became sick
Williams and Walker’s Dahomey (1903) are among the first black musicals to realize this new cakewalk’s sales. On it, Aida (she changed the fresh new spelling out-of their own identity of Ada to Aida, the name of your own Haitian lwa of fertility) played Rosetta Lightfoot that have a highlighted solamente, ”I wish to End up being a bona-fide Lady,” as well as the ”Cakewalk Finale,” partnered from the their own partner. ”The brand new range, this new elegance, new in hopes euphoria of those performers, whom bent more than backwards up until their minds nearly handled the ground, a task requiring an incredible number of electricity, its keen prancing, almost when you look at the slow-motion, have never already been equaled in this revel, let-alone exceeded,” composed Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey is taken to London area, where it had been demonstrated at the a command show before King Edward VII during the Buckingham Castle. Uk high society followed new Regal Nearest and dearest that have a good pouring passion for cakewalking. The organization returned to Nyc with a new kind of the new songs called In the Dahomey, and therefore exposed from the Grand Opera (1904).
In Williams and you can Walker’s second show, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker are both a dancer as well as the show’s choreographer. She are next checked during the and you may staged the fresh new musical number getting Bandanna Home (1908). Their symptoms was in fact afterwards identified since syphilis. In the 1909 he kept the new inform you, and his awesome role are rewritten to have Overton Walker, exactly who donned his fancy attire and you can done his wide variety, also their major song, ”Bon-bon Buddie.” Together with her partner’s position slow breaking down, and you will confronted with in which their own upcoming set, she chosen not to ever renew their unique bargain having Williams and you can Walker and you may as an alternative joined this new shed from Bob Cole and you will J. Rosamonde Johnson’s This new Yellow Moonlight (1909) in which she was checked in two songs numbers: ”Pheobe Brown” and you will ”Pickaninny Days,” dancing dollar-and-side to your chorus. She 2nd exposed on The new York’s Western Theatre having a vaudeville operate featuring a separate dance, the fresh ”Kara Kara,” or moving l’Afrique.