Due to the fact an infant she received moving education out-of a good Mrs. Thorp for the midtown New york. Up to 1897, immediately following graduating off Thorp’s dance university, she toured temporarily with Black colored Patti’s Troubadours. An effective girlfriend allowed their so you’re able to model to own an advertising which have Bert Williams and George Walker, who had only scored a knock in their vaudeville introduction at the Koster and Bial’s Songs Hallway. She offered to model to your offer and you can subsequently registered the brand new men in order to dance about cakewalk finale. Shortly after signing up for John W. Isham’s Octoroon, a good critic with the Indianapolis Freeman stated, “I kismia haku had just noticed top girl dancer.” Which have Grace Halliday she designed the brand new sister dance act of Overton and you may Halliday. They performed as the pair of Honolulu Belles from the Williams and you will Walkers’ The insurance policy Users (1899), and you will following that, Overton began to make given that a soloist with more big opportunities. On the tunes funny The new Sons out-of Ham (1900) she performed and you can danced “Miss Hannah out-of Savannah” and you can “Leading Woman”; plus its second model, “Society” and you can “Gleaming Ruby” and this produced their jubilant recognition. James Weldon Johnson authored that she “had a decreased-pitched sound which have an organic sob in order to they, hence she know the way you use with informing effect for the getting more than a track” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher recalled their particular since the a musician exactly who performed ragtime songs and you will ballads just as well; so when a performer “just who you can expect to manage everything, with no count in the event it is money-and-side, cakewalk, if you don’t some type of grotesque dance . . . she borrowed the brand new performance a nice gracefulness of motion unsurpassed from the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
In the 1910, she entered new Smart Put, a black colored theatrical business, and you will starred in His Award new Barber (1911)
For the June twenty-two, 1899, adopting the closure from A fortunate Coon, this new ragtime sounds demonstrated by the Ann Charters given that “a good hodge-podge of the things regarding ‘coon’ range regarding buck-moving and ragtime melodies to help you alternatives throughout the grand opera,” Overton partnered George Walker; their union manage change and you can intensify the brand new cakewalk from a core African-American everyone dancing on the a black modernist phrase, a leading artwork worth getting performed before royalty, toward light elite group, and on new concert phase.
That evening whenever you are onstage, George Walker, playing new character regarding Bud Jenkins, turned ill
Williams and you will Walker’s Dahomey (1903) was among the first black colored musicals to realize new cakewalk’s sales. In it, Aida (she altered the fresh new spelling off her name out of Ada to help you Aida, the name of one’s Haitian lwa of virility) played Rosetta Lightfoot that have a featured solamente, “I wish to Be a genuine Lady,” in addition to “Cakewalk Finale,” married from the her spouse. “The fresh new range, the new grace, the new in hopes euphoria of them performers, just who bent over backwards up until the thoughts nearly touched the ground, a feat demanding a great quantity of power, their keen prancing, nearly during the slow motion, have not started equaled in this particular revel, aside from surpassed,” authored Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey is actually brought to London, where it was showed at a command results in advance of Queen Edward VII within Buckingham Palace. United kingdom high society observed brand new Regal Household members which have a beneficial gushing desire to own cakewalking. The firm gone back to New york with a new sorts of this new songs entitled For the Dahomey, and that exposed from the Huge Opera (1904).
In the Williams and you will Walker’s second inform you, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker try each other a dancer and show’s choreographer. She is actually next featured from inside the and you will staged new songs wide variety to own Bandanna Home (1908). Their episodes was indeed later recognized given that syphilis. For the 1909 he kept the latest inform you, and his part is rewritten having Overton Walker, exactly who donned their fancy outfits and you can done their numbers, as well as their biggest song, “Bon bon Buddie.” Together with her partner’s status more sluggish extracting, and you may facing where their unique coming place, she selected to not ever replenish their particular price that have Williams and you can Walker and as an alternative entered the fresh new throw of Bob Cole and you will J. Rosamonde Johnson’s This new Yellow Moon (1909) in which she was appeared in 2 sounds quantity: “Pheobe Brown” and you can “Pickaninny Months,” moving dollar-and-side on the chorus. She 2nd opened at the Brand new York’s Western Theater which have a great vaudeville operate featuring an alternative moving, the newest “Kara Kara,” or dancing l’Afrique.
