Because an infant she received dance tuition away from an excellent Mrs. Thorp inside midtown New york. Doing 1897, immediately following graduating of Thorp’s dance school, she toured temporarily with Black colored Patti’s Troubadours. A girlfriend greet her so you can design to possess an advertising having Bert Williams and George Walker, who had kissbrides.com read review only scored a hit within their vaudeville introduction in the Koster and you may Bial’s Sounds Hall. She offered to design toward offer and you will then inserted the newest guys so you can dancing regarding cakewalk finale. Immediately after joining John W. Isham’s Octoroon, good critic with the Indianapolis Freeman declared, “I’d simply observed the very best girl dancer.” With Sophistication Halliday she molded the fresh new aunt moving act away from Overton and you can Halliday. They performed since pair of Honolulu Belles from the Williams and you may Walkers’ The insurance policy Professionals (1899), and from there, Overton started to generate due to the fact a soloist with an increase of good roles. In the music comedy The Sons out of Ham (1900) she sang and you may danced “Miss Hannah out-of Savannah” and “Best Woman”; as well as in its second release, “Society” and “Gleaming Ruby” and this lead her jubilant acclaim. James Weldon Johnson typed one to she “had a decreased-pitched sound that have a natural sob so you’re able to it, and therefore she know ways to use with telling impression inside getting over a track” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher recalled their particular given that an artist who performed ragtime music and you can ballads as well; so when a performer “exactly who could perform every little thing, and no amount whether or not it is actually money-and-side, cakewalk, if you don’t some form of grotesque dance . . . she lent the newest efficiency a nice gracefulness of movement unparalleled by anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
From inside the 1910, she inserted the new Wise Lay, a black theatrical business, and starred in Their Award the brand new Barber (1911)
To your Summer 22, 1899, pursuing the closing out-of A lucky Coon, this new ragtime songs revealed by the Ann Charters once the “a great hodge-podge of everything from the ‘coon’ range away from buck-dancing and you can ragtime melodies so you can alternatives on grand opera,” Overton hitched George Walker; its union carry out alter and you may intensify new cakewalk out-of a core African-Western folks dance toward a black modernist expression, a leading artwork well worth being did in advance of royalty, to the light elite, as well as on the brand new show phase.
You to night while you are onstage, George Walker, to experience the fresh new role out-of Bud Jenkins, turned unwell
Williams and Walker’s Dahomey (1903) is among the first black musicals to see the cakewalk’s transformation. Involved, Aida (she altered new spelling out of her name off Ada in order to Aida, title of one’s Haitian lwa off virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot with a presented solamente, “I would like to Getting a real Woman,” therefore the “Cakewalk Finale,” married by the her husband. “New line, this new elegance, the latest assured euphoria of these performers, just who curved more than backwards up to its heads almost moved the floor, a task requiring an unbelievable level of energy, their enthusiastic prancing, almost in slow-motion, have never already been equaled in this revel, let alone exceeded,” typed Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey is taken to London, where it had been displayed at a command performance prior to Queen Edward VII within Buckingham Castle. United kingdom high society then followed new Regal Members of the family that have a beneficial gushing warmth to have cakewalking. The organization returned to New york with a brand new brand of the newest musical called When you look at the Dahomey, and this unwrapped within Huge Opera (1904).
Inside the Williams and Walker’s 2nd let you know, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker are each other a performer and show’s choreographer. She is second featured inside and you may staged this new musical wide variety having Bandanna Property (1908). His attacks had been later on diagnosed as the syphilis. Within the 1909 he kept the newest show, along with his part are rewritten to own Overton Walker, just who donned his fancy clothing and performed his amounts, plus their major song, “Bon bon Buddie.” With her partner’s updates slow breaking down, and you will up against where their own coming set, she selected to not replace their own package with Williams and you can Walker and you will alternatively inserted the newest cast out of Bob Cole and J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The new Yellow Moon (1909) in which she try checked in two music wide variety: “Pheobe Brown” and you will “Pickaninny Months,” dance buck-and-wing for the chorus. She second unwrapped at The brand new York’s American Theatre which have a beneficial vaudeville act featuring another type of dance, new “Kara Kara,” or dancing l’Afrique.
