Given that a child she obtained moving training out of a beneficial Mrs. Thorp in midtown Manhattan. Up to 1897, immediately following graduating regarding Thorp’s moving college or university, she toured briefly that have Black Patti’s Troubadours. A beneficial girlfriend desired her to design getting a publicity having Bert Williams and you can George Walker, that has only obtained a hit within their vaudeville first at Koster and you will Bial’s Music Hall. She agreed to model on the ad and you can after that joined the fresh men so you can dance from the cakewalk finale. Immediately after signing up for John W. Isham’s Octoroon, good critic into the Indianapolis Freeman announced, “I experienced just noticed best girl performer.” With Sophistication Halliday she formed the brother dance work out of Overton and you can Halliday. It did because the collection of Honolulu Belles about Williams and you may Walkers’ The insurance policy Participants (1899), and you may from there, Overton began to establish just like the good soloist with increased good roles. From the songs comedy The new Sons away from Ham (1900) she sang and danced “Miss Hannah away from Savannah” and you will “Best Woman”; plus in the next version, “Society” and “Sparkling Ruby” hence introduced their jubilant recognition. James Weldon Johnson penned you to she “had the lowest-pitched sound which have a natural sob so you’re able to it, which she knew making use of that have telling impression within the putting more than a tune” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher remembered their own because an artist whom performed ragtime songs and you may ballads equally well; and also as a dancer “whom you are going to carry out almost anything, no count if it was dollars-and-wing, cakewalk, otherwise some kind of grotesque dancing . . . she borrowed the new efficiency a cool gracefulness of movement unsurpassed by anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
Within the 1910, she inserted the Wise Put, a black theatrical company, and starred in Their Honor the fresh Hairdresser (1911)
On June 22, 1899, adopting the closing away from A happy Coon, the new ragtime music discussed of the Ann Charters due to the fact “a beneficial hodge-podge of all things about ‘coon’ line of buck-moving and you will ragtime melodies to selections on huge opera,” Overton married George Walker; their commitment perform change and you will intensify the fresh cakewalk of a core African-Western individuals dancing for the a black colored modernist phrase, a premier art worth are did before royalty, on white top-notch, and on the brand new concert phase.
That evening while you are onstage, George Walker, to play the brand new character out-of Bud Jenkins, turned into unwell
Williams and Walker’s Dahomey (1903) is one of the first black musicals to learn the newest cakewalk’s sales. In it, Aida (she changed the fresh spelling from their unique label from Ada in order to Aida, title of the Haitian lwa out-of virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot with a presented solo, “I would like to End up being a real Woman,” therefore the “Cakewalk Finale,” married by the her spouse. “The fresh range, the brand new sophistication, the latest in hopes euphoria ones dancers, just who curved more backwards up until their thoughts almost moved the ground, a task demanding an incredible amount of fuel, its enthusiastic prancing, nearly into the slow-motion, have not come equaled in this particular revel, aside from exceeded,” had written Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey are taken to London area, where it had been displayed on a demand efficiency in advance of Queen Edward VII at Buckingham Castle. United kingdom high-society then followed new Regal Relatives that have a great gushing love getting cakewalking. The firm returned to New york with a brand new kind of this new musical titled Inside Dahomey, and this started during the Huge Opera (1904).
Within the Williams and you can Walker’s second inform you, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker try both a performer therefore the show’s choreographer. She is next searched into the and you can staged the brand new sounds number for Bandanna Home (1908). Their symptoms was in fact later on identified as the syphilis. When you look at the 1909 he remaining the brand new tell you, and his awesome part are rewritten to possess Overton Walker, who donned their showy gowns and carried out their quantity, and their major track, “Bon bon Buddie.” With her husband’s position slower breaking down, and you can facing in which their coming place, she picked never to replenish their particular price with Williams and Walker and you can rather joined the brand new shed out of Bob Cole and J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The latest Purple Moon (1909) where Nakhon si thammarat women dating agencies she are checked in two songs amounts: “Pheobe Brownish” and you can “Pickaninny Days,” dancing dollar-and-side on chorus. She 2nd unwrapped within The York’s Western Theater which have an excellent vaudeville work offering an alternate dancing, the brand new “Kara Kara,” otherwise moving l’Afrique.