Ada Overton Walker was born with the Valentines Time inside the 1880 inside the The latest York’s Greenwich Town

As the a baby she gotten dancing education regarding an excellent Mrs. Thorp for the midtown Manhattan. As much as 1897, immediately after graduating out-of Thorp’s dancing college or university, she toured temporarily which have Black colored Patti’s Troubadours. An excellent girlfriend desired her so you can design to have an advertising which have Bert Williams and you will George Walker, who had only scored a bump inside their vaudeville introduction on Koster and you can Bial’s Sounds Hall. She accessible to model into the ad and you may next registered brand new guys to dancing regarding the cakewalk finale. Once joining John W. Isham’s Octoroon, a beneficial critic on Indianapolis Freeman announced, “I got merely noticed the very best girl performer.” With Sophistication Halliday she formed the latest sibling moving act regarding Overton and Halliday. It performed as pair of Honolulu Belles from the Williams and you can Walkers’ The policy Players (1899), and you can from that point, Overton started to generate while the a great soloist with additional big roles. Regarding tunes funny The new Sons regarding Ham (1900) she done and you may danced “Skip Hannah off Savannah” and you will “Best Woman”; along with its next version, “Society” and you will “Sparkling Ruby” and this put their own jubilant recognition. James Weldon Johnson blogged you to definitely she “got a minimal-pitched voice that have an organic sob to help you they, hence she realized strategies for that have informing impression from inside the putting more than a song” (Johnson 1933). Tom Fletcher appreciated their own due to the fact a singer who performed ragtime sounds and you can ballads just as well; and also as a dancer “whom you may create every little thing, no number whether it try dollars-and-side, cakewalk, otherwise some form of grotesque moving . . . she lent this new performance a neat gracefulness of motion unsurpassed from the anyone” (Fletcher 1954).

From inside the 1910 Д°zlandaca kadД±n personel, she registered the Wise Lay, a black theatrical organization, and starred in Their Honor the fresh Hairdresser (1911)

Towards Summer twenty two, 1899, following the closure out-of A fortunate Coon, this new ragtime audio revealed from the Ann Charters once the “an excellent hodge-podge of the things from the ‘coon’ line of money-moving and ragtime melodies to alternatives regarding huge opera,” Overton partnered George Walker; their commitment create transform and you can elevate the newest cakewalk of a core African-American visitors moving towards the a black modernist term, a leading art worth becoming performed ahead of royalty, towards white elite group, and on the fresh concert stage.

You to night when you’re onstage, George Walker, playing the fresh new character of Bud Jenkins, turned ill

Williams and you can Walker’s Dahomey (1903) try one of the primary black colored musicals to realize the fresh new cakewalk’s transformation. On it, Aida (she altered the fresh new spelling away from their identity from Ada to Aida, the name of your own Haitian lwa out-of virility) starred Rosetta Lightfoot having a highlighted unicamente, “I would like to Getting a genuine Woman,” while the “Cakewalk Finale,” partnered from the their particular partner. “The brand new line, the new elegance, this new in hopes euphoria of them performers, just who curved more backwards up to their brains almost moved a floor, a task requiring an unbelievable level of strength, their keen prancing, almost during the slow motion, have-not come equaled in this particular revel, let alone surpassed,” typed Carl Van Vechten (Van Vechten 1974). Dahomey is actually brought to London area, in which it had been showed on a command efficiency ahead of King Edward VII at the Buckingham Castle. British high society observed the latest Regal Household members which have an excellent pouring enthusiasm to have cakewalking. The organization returned to Ny with a brand new sorts of this new audio named Within the Dahomey, and this open within Grand Opera (1904).

From inside the Williams and you will Walker’s 2nd reveal, Abyssinia (1906), Overton Walker are each other a performer therefore the show’s choreographer. She was 2nd searched within the and you can staged the fresh tunes quantity to have Bandanna House (1908). His symptoms was in fact after diagnosed because syphilis. Within the 1909 he remaining brand new tell you, along with his part are rewritten to possess Overton Walker, just who donned their flashy dresses and you may carried out their amounts, along with their significant song, “Bon-bon Buddie.” Along with her husband’s position slow breaking down, and faced with where their particular coming put, she picked never to renew their own contract with Williams and you can Walker and rather inserted the latest throw away from Bob Cole and you will J. Rosamonde Johnson’s The fresh Yellow Moon (1909) where she try seemed in two tunes numbers: “Pheobe Brownish” and you will “Pickaninny Days,” moving dollars-and-side into chorus. She second open at New York’s American Theater that have a vaudeville operate presenting a unique moving, the fresh “Kara Kara,” otherwise dancing l’Afrique.