As the a baby she gotten moving tuition out of a Mrs. Thorp when you look at the midtown Manhattan. As much as 1897, once graduating out-of Thorp’s dancing university, she toured briefly with Black colored Patti’s Troubadours. A beneficial girlfriend allowed their unique to help you design to own a promotion with Bert Williams and George Walker, who had only scored a bump within vaudeville debut within Koster and you can Bial’s Songs Hallway. She offered to design into the offer and you will next registered brand new men so you can dance throughout the cakewalk finale. Immediately after joining John W. Isham’s Octoroon, an excellent critic into Indianapolis Freeman proclaimed, “I Д°skandinav diЕџi ile Г§Д±kma had merely seen the number one girl dancer.” Which have Sophistication Halliday she formed new brother dance work off Overton and you can Halliday. They performed because group of Honolulu Belles in the Williams and you may Walkers’ The insurance policy People (1899), and you will from that point, Overton began to generate because a great soloist with an increase of large positions. On the songs comedy New Sons off Ham (1900) she sang and you will danced “Miss Hannah from Savannah” and you may “Top Lady”; as well as in their 2nd edition, “Society” and you can “Gleaming Ruby” which put her jubilant acclaim. James Weldon Johnson authored you to definitely she “got a reduced-pitched sound that have a natural sob so you’re able to it, which she realized making use of with telling effect inside the placing more than a track” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher appreciated their just like the a musician exactly who did ragtime tunes and you can ballads equally well; so that as a performer “who you can expect to perform every little thing, and no amount if it are money-and-wing, cakewalk, if not some form of grotesque dancing . . . she lent the newest results a cool gracefulness of motion unparalleled of the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
Inside the 1910, she registered brand new Smart Lay, a black theatrical team, and you may starred in His Honor the fresh new Hairdresser (1911)
On June 22, 1899, following closing away from A fortunate Coon, the brand new ragtime audio explained from the Ann Charters due to the fact “an effective hodge-podge of all things throughout the ‘coon’ range off buck-dancing and ragtime melodies to options on grand opera,” Overton partnered George Walker; their connection create changes and you can intensify the latest cakewalk of a center African-American someone dancing on the a black colored modernist phrase, a premier artwork well worth becoming performed before royalty, toward light elite, and on the latest show stage.
You to definitely evening if you’re onstage, George Walker, to play the fresh part off Bud Jenkins, became unwell
Williams and you may Walker’s Dahomey (1903) was one of the first black musicals to see the newest cakewalk’s conversion. In it, Aida (she altered the fresh spelling from her identity off Ada to help you Aida, the name of one’s Haitian lwa of virility) played Rosetta Lightfoot which have a presented solamente, “I would like to Feel a bona fide Lady,” therefore the “Cakewalk Finale,” hitched by their particular husband. “New range, brand new sophistication, the fresh hoping ecstasy ones performers, who curved over backwards until their brains nearly handled a floor, a task requiring an unbelievable level of stamina, its eager prancing, nearly within the slow-motion, never have become equaled in this revel, let-alone exceeded,” wrote Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey was taken to London area, in which it absolutely was exhibited from the a demand efficiency before Queen Edward VII on Buckingham Palace. British high-society implemented this new Regal Family members which have an effective pouring passion to own cakewalking. The firm gone back to Nyc with a new sort of the fresh new audio called Into the Dahomey, hence launched in the Huge Opera (1904).
From inside the Williams and you can Walker’s next inform you, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker is actually each other a dancer in addition to show’s choreographer. She try second searched into the and you can staged the musical wide variety to own Bandanna Home (1908). Their symptoms were later diagnosed since syphilis. Inside 1909 he kept the latest tell you, and his role is rewritten to own Overton Walker, exactly who donned their showy dresses and you can done his amounts, including his big tune, “Bon bon Buddie.” With her partner’s updates slow breaking down, and you may facing in which their particular coming set, she selected not to replenish their own contract with Williams and you will Walker and you can instead entered the newest cast away from Bob Cole and J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The latest Yellow Moon (1909) in which she try appeared in 2 music wide variety: “Pheobe Brownish” and you can “Pickaninny Months,” moving dollar-and-wing on the chorus. She second exposed on The latest York’s American Movie theater that have good vaudeville operate featuring another dancing, the fresh “Kara Kara,” or moving l’Afrique.