19/29. Queen of the Cakewalk (Ada Overton Walker) Original

Original

F6-size: 410 x 318 mm (16.14" x 12.5")

Materials: Wood board, gesso, inkjet print, chiyogami paper, gilding flakes, gel medium, mylar, acrylic gold paint.

Image source: Found image, 2019

FYI: Aida Overton Walker, also billed as Ada Overton Walker and as "The Queen of the Cakewalk," was an American vaudeville performer, actress, singer, dancer, choreographer, and wife of vaudevillian George Walker.

Mourned as the foremost African-American female stage artist, Overton Walker's interest in both African-American indigenous material and her translation of these to the modern stage anticipated the choreographic work of modern dance pioneers Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus. Both in her solo work for women and in the unison and precision choreographies for the female chorus, she claimed a female presence on the American theatrical stage. By negotiating the narrow white definitions of appropriate black performance with her own version of black specialization and innovation, Overton Walker established a black cultural identity onstage that established a model by which African-American musical artists could gain acceptance on the professional concert stage.

(source: Wikipedia, Constance Valis Hill, Tap Dancing America, A Cultural History (2010), Memory.loc.gov)

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