Due to the fact a child she acquired moving instruction out of an effective Mrs. Thorp from inside the midtown Manhattan. Doing 1897, shortly after graduating out of Thorp’s dancing school, she toured briefly which have Black Patti’s Troubadours. Good girlfriend greeting her in order to model to possess an advertising having Bert Williams and you may George Walker, that has just obtained a hit within vaudeville first in the Koster and you can Bial’s Music Hallway. She provided to design on ad and you can next inserted the new men to dancing regarding cakewalk finale. Just after signing up for John W. Isham’s Octoroon, an effective critic towards the Indianapolis Freeman stated, “I’d just seen a girl dancer.” Having Elegance Halliday she molded new sis moving operate regarding Overton and Halliday. It performed due to the fact set of Honolulu Belles regarding Williams and you may Walkers’ The policy Participants (1899), and after that, Overton started to create since good soloist with more good opportunities. About music funny The Sons out-of Ham (1900) she done and you may danced “Skip Hannah regarding Savannah” and you can “Best Woman”; along with the second release, “Society” and you may “Sparkling Ruby” hence put her jubilant acclaim. James Weldon Johnson authored you to she “got a minimal-pitched voice that have a natural sob to it, which she knew strategies for having advising feeling in the putting over a track” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher appreciated her since a musician whom did ragtime tunes and you can ballads equally well; and also as a performer “whom could would almost anything, without number if it are money-and-side, cakewalk, or even some kind of grotesque dancing . . . she borrowed the newest performance a neat gracefulness of motion unsurpassed from the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).
When you look at the 1910, she inserted the new Smart Place, a black colored theatrical organization, and you will starred in Their Honor the fresh new Barber (1911)
Into the June twenty-two, 1899, following closure out of A happy Coon, brand 
new ragtime sounds revealed because of the Ann Charters while the “a great hodge-podge of everything from the ‘coon’ line from dollar-moving and you can ragtime melodies in order to alternatives on huge opera,” Overton married George Walker; its commitment manage transform and you may intensify the new cakewalk out of a key African-Western folk dance for the a black modernist expression, a premier artwork worthy of are performed before royalty, towards white elite group, as well as on the latest concert phase.
You to nights when you find yourself onstage, George Walker, playing new part out of Bud Jenkins, turned into sick
Williams and Walker’s Dahomey (1903) is among the first black musicals to find the fresh new cakewalk’s conversion. Inside it, Aida (she altered the new spelling off her identity from Ada to help you Aida, title of Haitian lwa regarding virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot that have a presented solo, “I would like to Feel a bona-fide Woman,” therefore the “Cakewalk Finale,” married by their particular husband. “The latest line, the latest sophistication, the brand new assured ecstasy of them dancers, who curved more than backwards up to their thoughts nearly moved a floor, a feat requiring an incredible amount of fuel, its keen prancing, nearly inside the slow motion, never have been equaled in this particular revel, let-alone exceeded,” wrote Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey try taken to London area, in which it was demonstrated from the a demand performance prior to King Edward VII at the Buckingham Castle. United kingdom high-society observed the latest Regal Family members with an excellent pouring enthusiasm having cakewalking. The company returned to Nyc with a brand new version of the new musical entitled When you look at the Dahomey, which unwrapped within Grand Opera (1904).
From inside the Williams and you may Walker’s 2nd tell you, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker are both a performer while the show’s choreographer. She is second appeared into the and staged the latest music amounts getting Bandanna Homes (1908). His episodes had been after detected due to the fact syphilis. In 1909 the guy left the brand new show, and his part are rewritten getting Overton Walker, just who donned their showy clothes and you will carried out his numbers, and their big tune, “Bon bon Buddie.” Along with her partner’s standing slower breaking down, and you may up against in which their upcoming place, she chose never to replenish their unique price with Williams and you can Walker and you can as an alternative registered the fresh throw off Bob Cole and you can J. Rosamonde Johnson’s This new Red Moon (1909) in which she was checked in 2 songs amounts: “Pheobe Brown” and you may “Pickaninny Months,” moving dollar-and-wing for the chorus. She 2nd unsealed at New York’s American Movie theater with an excellent vaudeville operate offering yet another dancing, the fresh new “Kara Kara,” or dance l’Afrique.
