As an infant she received dance classes away from an excellent Mrs. Thorp within the midtown New york. As much as 1897, after graduating out-of Thorp’s moving university, she toured briefly with Black Patti’s Troubadours. A beneficial girlfriend anticipate their particular to design to possess an advertising having Bert Williams and George Walker, who had just obtained a bump within vaudeville first at Koster and you can Bial’s Musical Hall. She provided to design towards the post and you may then joined brand new men so you can moving regarding the cakewalk finale. Immediately after joining John W. Isham’s Octoroon, a good critic to your Indianapolis Freeman proclaimed, “I’d merely observed the best girl dancer.” With Sophistication Halliday she shaped the newest cousin dancing work from Overton and you can Halliday. They did as the set of Honolulu Belles on the Williams and you can Walkers’ The insurance policy Members (1899), and you can after that, Overton began to create as a beneficial soloist with substantial positions. Regarding the sounds funny The newest Sons off Ham (1900) she performed and you may danced “Skip Hannah away from Savannah” and you can “Top Woman”; plus its 2nd edition, “Society” and “Sparkling Ruby” which introduced their particular jubilant recognition. James Weldon Johnson published you to definitely she “got a low-pitched voice with an organic sob so you’re able to they, which she realized the way you use with advising feeling from inside the putting more a tune” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher recalled her just like the an artist just who performed ragtime songs and ballads as well; so when a performer “just who you can expect to would almost anything, and no number if this try buck-and-side, cakewalk, if not some type of grotesque dancing . . . she lent new performance a nice gracefulness of movement unparalleled by the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
When you look at the 1910, she joined new Smart Lay, a black theatrical company, and you will appeared in His Honor the fresh Barber (1911)
For the Summer 22, 1899, following closure off A happy Coon, the newest ragtime sounds described by Ann Charters just like the “an excellent hodge-podge of all things from the ‘coon’ range off dollars-dancing and ragtime tunes so you’re able to choices about grand opera,” Overton hitched George Walker; the partnership perform change and you may escalate new cakewalk from a core African-Western folk dance on the a black colored modernist term, a leading art worth being performed in advance of royalty, toward light top-notch, as well as on the newest performance phase.
One evening when you find yourself onstage, George Walker, to play the new part out-of Bud Jenkins, turned ill
Williams and you may Walker’s Dahomey (1903) are among the first black musicals to find this new cakewalk’s conversion. With it, Aida (she altered the latest spelling away from their identity of Ada so you can Aida, title of Haitian lwa of virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot with a highlighted solamente, “I do want to Become a genuine Lady,” while the “Cakewalk Finale,” partnered from the their own partner. “The latest range, new elegance, this new hoping euphoria of them dancers, exactly who curved more backward up until the brains almost touched the floor, a task demanding a great level of power, their eager prancing, almost in slow-motion, have never come equaled in this particular revel, let alone surpassed,” had written Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey was taken to London area, where it had been presented within a command abilities just before King Edward VII at Buckingham Castle. United kingdom high-society then followed the latest Royal Family members having an effective pouring warmth to have cakewalking. The company gone back to New york with a new sorts of the tunes entitled In Dahomey, and therefore opened at the Huge Opera (1904).
Within the Williams and you may Walker’s 2nd let you know, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker is actually one another a performer additionally the show’s choreographer. She was 2nd seemed in the and you may staged the fresh new musical number to possess Bandanna Homes (1908). His episodes was basically later recognized as syphilis. During the 1909 he kept the new tell you, along with his character is actually rewritten having Overton Walker, who donned his fancy erinomainen sivusto tarkkailla clothes and you may done their wide variety, in addition to his big track, “Bon bon Buddie.” With her husband’s reputation slow breaking down, and up against in which their particular upcoming lay, she chose to not ever replace her package with Williams and Walker and you can as an alternative entered the latest cast from Bob Cole and J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The Reddish Moonlight (1909) where she is actually featured in two audio number: “Pheobe Brownish” and you will “Pickaninny Months,” moving dollars-and-wing into chorus. She next established in the New York’s Western Movie theater with a good vaudeville act presenting a new dancing, the new “Kara Kara,” or moving l’Afrique.