Once the an infant she received moving training regarding a good Mrs. Thorp inside midtown Manhattan. Around 1897, immediately after graduating out of Thorp’s moving school, she toured briefly that have Black Patti’s Troubadours. A great girlfriend invited their unique so you can design having a promotion which have Bert Williams and you can George Walker, who’d just scored a bump within vaudeville first at Koster and you can Bial’s Audio Hallway. She agreed to design into the advertisement and you may after that inserted the fresh men to moving regarding the cakewalk finale. Immediately after signing up for John W. Isham’s Octoroon, a good critic into the Indianapolis Freeman stated, “I had merely noticed top girl performer.” Which have Grace Halliday she designed new aunt dance work away from Overton and you will Halliday. They performed as collection of Honolulu Belles regarding the Williams and Walkers’ The insurance policy Professionals (1899), and you may from there, Overton began to develop because the an excellent soloist with increased reasonable opportunities. From the sounds funny The latest Sons regarding Ham (1900) she carried out and you will danced “Skip Hannah off Savannah” and you will “Top Lady”; along with the next edition, “Society” and “Sparkling Ruby” and this produced their unique jubilant recognition. James Weldon Johnson had written one to she “got a decreased-pitched sound which have an organic sob to they, and therefore she know the way you use which have telling impact when you look at the getting over a tune” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher appreciated their unique since a musician just who did ragtime songs and ballads just as well; so that as a dancer “exactly who you are going to carry out almost anything, without count whether or not it was dollars-and-side, cakewalk, if you don’t some type of grotesque moving . . . she lent brand new efficiency a nice gracefulness of movement unsurpassed of the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).

During the 1910, she joined the new Smart Set, a black theatrical providers, and you can starred in Their Prize the new Hairdresser (1911)

With the Summer twenty-two, 1899, pursuing the closing out of A happy Coon, the brand new ragtime audio described from the Ann Charters since “a hodge-podge of the things about ‘coon’ range regarding buck-dancing and ragtime melodies in order to alternatives from the grand opera,” Overton partnered George Walker; the relationship manage change and you will intensify brand new cakewalk of a core African-American visitors dance to the a black colored modernist term, a premier ways worth getting performed before royalty, to your light top-notch, as well as on brand new performance phase.

One to nights when you’re onstage, George Walker, to play the newest part from Bud Jenkins, turned sick

Williams and you may Walker’s Dahomey (1903) was one of the first black colored musicals to discover this new cakewalk’s conversion. In it, Aida (she changed the latest spelling of their title out-of Ada to help you Aida, title of the Haitian lwa of virility) played Rosetta Lightfoot having a featured solamente, “I do want to Getting a bona fide Woman,” while the “Cakewalk Finale,” hitched because of the their spouse. “The newest line, the brand new grace, the fresh in hopes ecstasy ones performers, just who curved more than backward up until their minds almost moved a floor, a feat requiring an amazing quantity of power, their keen prancing, almost when you look at the slow motion, have never started equaled in this revel, not to mention surpassed,” typed Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey was taken to London, where it was shown at the a demand overall performance just before King Edward VII within Buckingham Palace. United kingdom high society Afrika kadД±n observed brand new Regal Nearest and dearest having a beneficial pouring desire to own cakewalking. The company returned to New york with a new kind of the musical titled In the Dahomey, and that established in the Grand Opera (1904).

In the Williams and you may Walker’s second inform you, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker are one another a performer while the show’s choreographer. She try second appeared inside and staged this new songs numbers to have Bandanna Residential property (1908). Their periods was indeed later on detected just like the syphilis. From inside the 1909 he leftover the latest show, along with his character are rewritten getting Overton Walker, whom donned their fancy attire and you will performed their number, also their major track, “Bon-bon Buddie.” With her husband’s reputation slowly extracting, and you can faced with where their own coming set, she selected not to ever renew their unique bargain with Williams and you may Walker and as an alternative joined this new throw away from Bob Cole and J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The latest Purple Moonlight (1909) in which she was checked in 2 music wide variety: “Pheobe Brownish” and you will “Pickaninny Days,” dance dollars-and-wing towards chorus. She 2nd established in the The new York’s Western Movie theater having a beneficial vaudeville operate featuring an alternate dance, brand new “Kara Kara,” or dance l’Afrique.