Because a young child she acquired dance education off an excellent Mrs. Thorp in midtown Manhattan. Up to 1897, once graduating from Thorp’s dance college or university, she toured temporarily which have Black Patti’s Troubadours Guyanese naiset henkilГ¶kohtaiset. A partner anticipate her so you’re able to design to possess a publicity with Bert Williams and you can George Walker, who’d merely obtained a bump within vaudeville introduction at the Koster and Bial’s Musical Hall. She wanted to design towards the offer and subsequently registered the brand new boys to dance in the cakewalk finale. Shortly after joining John W. Isham’s Octoroon, a beneficial critic to the Indianapolis Freeman announced, “I’d simply seen best woman performer.” That have Sophistication Halliday she shaped the new cousin dancing act out of Overton and you may Halliday. It performed given that pair of Honolulu Belles on Williams and Walkers’ The policy People (1899), and you can after that, Overton began to produce just like the good soloist with an increase of big jobs. About audio funny The brand new Sons off Ham (1900) she carried out and you will danced “Miss Hannah out-of Savannah” and you can “Leading Females”; plus the next edition, “Society” and you may “Gleaming Ruby” and that lead the girl jubilant acclaim. Tom Fletcher recalled her because the an artist which performed ragtime tunes and you will ballads just as well; so that as a performer “exactly who you may perform everything, with no amount in the event it is actually buck-and-side, cakewalk, otherwise some type of grotesque dancing . . . she lent the fresh new results a neat gracefulness of motion unparalleled from the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).

James Weldon Johnson composed you to she “got a low-pitched sound that have an organic sob so you can it, and this she understood how to use which have informing effect into the placing more a song” (Johnson 1933)

To the June twenty-two, 1899, adopting the closing out-of A happy Coon, brand new ragtime sounds described because of the Ann Charters since the “a good hodge-podge of everything on the ‘coon’ line regarding buck-dancing and you may ragtime melodies to help you selection throughout the huge opera,” Overton married George Walker; the commitment carry out alter and you may escalate the fresh cakewalk out-of a key African-Western group dancing towards the a black modernist term, a top ways worthy of being did just before royalty, on white professional, as well as on brand new performance phase.

One evening when you’re onstage, George Walker, playing brand new character away from Bud Jenkins, turned into ill

Williams and you will Walker’s Dahomey (1903) try among the first black colored musicals to find the fresh cakewalk’s sales. Inside, Aida (she altered new spelling out of the lady label off Ada so you’re able to Aida, title of your own Haitian lwa off virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot having a highlighted unicamente, “I would like to End up being a bona fide Ladies,” and the “Cakewalk Finale,” hitched because of the the girl partner. “The new range, the latest elegance, new hoping ecstasy of these performers, just who bent over backward up until its brains nearly handled the floor, an accomplishment demanding an incredible level of strength, the enthusiastic prancing, almost when you look at the slow motion, have never started equaled in this particular revel, not to mention surpassed,” blogged Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey are brought to London area, in which it had been shown from the a command overall performance ahead of Queen Edward VII from the Buckingham Castle. British high society observed new Royal Family unit members which have a beneficial gushing desire to own cakewalking. The company gone back to Ny with a new version of the audio named Within the Dahomey, which started within Huge Opera (1904).

From inside the Williams and Walker’s 2nd tell you, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker was both a performer plus the show’s choreographer. She is actually 2nd looked into the and you can staged brand new songs amounts having Bandanna Residential property (1908). His episodes was indeed after recognized just like the syphilis. When you look at the 1909 he remaining the inform you, and his part is actually rewritten to own Overton Walker, exactly who donned their flashy clothing and you will performed their wide variety, along with their major song, “Bon-bon Buddie.” Along with her partner’s condition reduced wearing down, and you will up against in which the lady coming lay, she chose not to renew the girl deal having Williams and you can Walker and you may as an alternative entered the newest cast out of Bob Cole and you may J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The fresh new Yellow Moon (1909) where she are seemed in two sounds quantity: “Pheobe Brown” and you may “Pickaninny Months,” dance dollars-and-wing with the chorus. She second established at the The new York’s Western Theater which have a great vaudeville operate offering a different sort of dance, the fresh new “Kara Kara,” otherwise dance l’Afrique. Into the 1910, she joined the latest Wise Put, a black theatrical business, and you will starred in Their Award brand new Hairdresser (1911).