Just like the a child she obtained dancing instruction from a beneficial Mrs. Thorp in midtown Manhattan. Up to 1897, shortly after graduating out of Thorp’s moving university, she toured briefly having Black Patti’s Troubadours. An excellent girlfriend desired their to help you model to possess a marketing that have Bert Williams and George Walker, who had just obtained a hit in their vaudeville introduction from the Koster and you can Bial’s Music Hallway. She agreed to model to your post and you can after that joined the brand new guys so you’re able to moving regarding the cakewalk finale. Immediately after joining John W. Isham’s Octoroon, good critic on the Indianapolis Freeman declared, “I experienced just seen a girl dancer.” Having Sophistication Halliday she designed this new sister dance operate away from Overton and Halliday. They performed because pair of Honolulu Belles about Williams and you can Walkers’ The policy Players (1899), and you may from that point, Overton started to produce since the a beneficial soloist with reasonable jobs. On the audio comedy This new Sons out-of Ham (1900) she carried out and danced “Miss Hannah away from Savannah” and you may “Leading Woman”; along with the second model, “Society” and you can “Gleaming Ruby” and therefore put their own jubilant recognition. James Weldon Johnson authored you to she “got a minimal-pitched sound that have an organic sob in order to they, and that she know strategies for with telling impression within the getting over a tune” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher recalled their own because a musician which did ragtime songs and you can ballads equally well; so that as a dancer “who you will would everything, no count whether it are dollars-and-side, cakewalk, otherwise some sort of grotesque moving . . . she lent the latest performance a neat gracefulness of motion unparalleled of the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
In the 1910, she inserted the newest Wise Lay, a black colored theatrical team, and you may appeared in Their Honor this new Barber (1911)
Toward Summer 22, 1899, pursuing the closure off A happy Coon, brand new ragtime songs described of the Ann Charters since the “an effective hodge-podge of all things on ‘coon’ line out of dollar-dancing and you may ragtime melodies so you can selections throughout the grand opera,” Overton hitched George Walker; the partnership create alter and you will elevate brand new cakewalk away from a core African-American everyone dance to the a black modernist term, a top ways worth becoming did before royalty, for the white elite group, and on the fresh new show stage dating sivustoja Tanskalainen naiset.
You to nights if you are onstage, George Walker, to relax and play the newest part regarding Bud Jenkins, turned sick
Williams and Walker’s Dahomey (1903) was one of the first black musicals to find out the latest cakewalk’s sales. Inside, Aida (she altered brand new spelling off their unique term from Ada to help you Aida, the name of your Haitian lwa from virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot having a featured unicamente, “I do want to Feel a genuine Woman,” therefore the “Cakewalk Finale,” partnered by the their particular spouse. “The latest range, the grace, the fresh assured euphoria ones dancers, who bent more than backward up until the thoughts almost moved the floor, a task demanding an unbelievable level of stamina, its keen prancing, nearly in the slow motion, haven’t become equaled in this revel, aside from exceeded,” published Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey are delivered to London, in which it was shown on a demand show ahead of Queen Edward VII at Buckingham Palace. United kingdom high-society then followed the fresh Regal Nearest and dearest which have good pouring passion to have cakewalking. The business returned to Nyc with a new particular the fresh new audio named Inside Dahomey, hence unwrapped on Grand Opera (1904).
For the Williams and you can Walker’s second let you know, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker try one another a performer therefore the show’s choreographer. She try next searched inside and you will staged the newest musical amounts to own Bandanna Homes (1908). Their attacks had been afterwards recognized since syphilis. For the 1909 the guy remaining the new inform you, and his awesome part are rewritten getting Overton Walker, just who donned their showy outfits and you can done their number, together with their biggest tune, “Bon bon Buddie.” With her husband’s standing slower extracting, and you will faced with in which their particular coming place, she chose not to ever replace their unique contract that have Williams and you can Walker and rather joined brand new shed from Bob Cole and you can J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The newest Reddish Moon (1909) where she try checked in 2 musical numbers: “Pheobe Brownish” and you will “Pickaninny Weeks,” dance buck-and-side towards chorus. She 2nd open within The brand new York’s American Theatre with good vaudeville act offering an alternate moving, the “Kara Kara,” otherwise dance l’Afrique.