Given that a child she obtained dancing knowledge out-of good Mrs. Thorp when you look at the midtown New york. As much as 1897, just after graduating off Thorp’s dancing university, she toured temporarily having Black Patti’s Troubadours. A girlfriend acceptance their own in order to model to possess an advertising that have Bert Williams and you may George Walker, who’d merely scored a bump inside their vaudeville introduction on Koster and you can Bial’s Music Hallway. She agreed to model into the advertisement and next joined the latest guys so you can dance about cakewalk finale. Immediately after signing up for John W. Isham’s Octoroon, an effective critic into Indianapolis Freeman stated, “I’d simply seen the most effective girl performer.” That have Elegance Halliday she shaped the newest brother dancing operate out of Overton and you may Halliday. They performed just like the pair of Honolulu Belles throughout the Williams and you can Walkers’ The insurance policy Members (1899), and you may from that point, Overton started initially to produce once the a good soloist with generous spots. Regarding sounds funny The latest Sons away from Ham (1900) she carried out and danced “Miss Hannah away from Savannah” and you can “Top Lady”; as well as in its 2nd edition, “Society” and you will “Gleaming Ruby” and that delivered their particular jubilant acclaim. James Weldon Johnson had written one to she “got a reduced-pitched sound which have an organic sob so you can it, which she realized the way you use with telling feeling in the placing over a song” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher recalled their own because the a singer whom performed ragtime sounds and you will ballads just as well; so when a dancer “which you certainly will do almost anything, and no number in the event it try dollar-and-wing, cakewalk, or even some type of grotesque moving . . . she lent the newest show a nice gracefulness of motion unparalleled because of the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
In the 1910, she entered the fresh Smart Place, a black theatrical team, and you will appeared in His Award the new Barber (1911)
On Summer twenty-two, 1899, after the closure from A happy Coon, the brand new ragtime music explained from the Ann Charters because “a good hodge-podge of all things on the ‘coon’ range off dollar-dancing and you may ragtime melodies to help you selections from the huge opera,” Overton married George Walker; their partnership manage change and you can intensify the fresh cakewalk out-of a key African-Western someone dance into the a black modernist term, a top ways worthy of getting did just before royalty, to the light elite group, as well as on the show phase.
You to definitely evening if you’re onstage, George Walker, to experience the role off Bud Jenkins, turned sick
Williams and you can Walker’s Dahomey (1903) is one of the first black musicals to find the latest cakewalk’s sales. Inside, Aida (she changed new spelling out of her title away from Ada in order to Aida, title of the Haitian lwa of virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot that have a featured solo, “I would like to Feel a real Woman,” and also the “Cakewalk Finale,” married by their particular spouse. “The fresh range, brand new sophistication, this new in hopes ecstasy ones performers, who curved over backwards until its minds nearly handled the ground, a task requiring an amazing level of stamina, the eager prancing, nearly for the slow motion, have-not been equaled in this particular revel, not to mention exceeded,” composed Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey is actually delivered to London area, in which it had been displayed at the a command performance ahead of King Edward VII within Buckingham Castle. United kingdom high society then followed the latest Royal Household members which have a beneficial pouring love getting cakewalking. The company gone back to Nyc with a new sorts of the new music named Within the Dahomey, which unwrapped at Grand Opera (1904).
From inside the Williams and Walker’s 2nd show, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker is one another a dancer and the show’s choreographer. She are next looked from inside the and staged the latest music amounts for Bandanna House (1908). His attacks was in fact after recognized while the syphilis. Into the 1909 he left the latest tell you, with his part try rewritten having Overton Walker, which donned their showy gowns and you may sang their number, also his biggest track, “Bon-bon Buddie.” With her husband’s updates reduced extracting, and facing where their own coming put, she selected not to renew their particular offer having Williams https://kissbrides.com/fi/kuuma-slovenialainen-naiset/ and you can Walker and you can rather entered the newest throw regarding Bob Cole and you will J. Rosamonde Johnson’s This new Purple Moon (1909) where she was searched in 2 tunes number: “Pheobe Brownish” and you may “Pickaninny Months,” moving buck-and-wing with the chorus. She 2nd opened within Brand new York’s American Theatre that have a vaudeville operate featuring an alternative moving, brand new “Kara Kara,” or moving l’Afrique.