Kicha's photos with the keyword: Choreographer

Aida Overton Walker (1880-1914), dazzled early 20th century theater audiences with her original dance routines, her enchanting singing voice, and her penchant for elegant costumes. One of the premiere African American women artists of the turn of the century, she popularized the cakewalk and introduced it to English society. In addition to her attractive stage persona and highly acclaimed performances, she won the hearts of black entertainers for numerous benefit performances near the end of her tragically short career and for her cultivation of younger women performers. She was, in the words of the New York Age's Lester Walton, the exponent of "clean, refined artistic entertainment." Born in New York City, where she gained an education and considerable musical training. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined John Isham's Octoroons, one of the most influential black touring groups of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of the Black Patti Troubadours. Although the show consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising soubrettes of her day. In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, and appeared in all of their shows—The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907). Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Overton married and before long became one of the most admired and elegant African American couples on stage. While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the "funniest man in America," Aida quickly became an indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a positive, strong image of black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the plantation image of black women as plump mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in the shows; when In Dahomey was moved to England, Aida proved to be one of the strongest attractions. Society women invited her to their homes for private lessons in the exotic cakewalk that the Walkers had included in the show. After two seasons in England, the company returned to the United States in 1904, and it was Aida who was featured in a New York Herald interview about their tour. At times Walker asked his wife to interpret dances made famous by other performers—one example being the "Salome" dance that took Broadway by storm in the early 1900s—which she did with uneven success. After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida's career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Initially Walker returned to his boyhood home of Lawrence, Kansas, where his mother took care of him. In his absence, Aida took over many of his songs and dances to keep the company together. In early 1909, however, Bandanna Land was forced to close, and Aida temporarily retired from stage work to care for her husband, now clearly seriously ill. No doubt recognizing that he likely would not recover and that she alone could support the family, she returned to the stage in Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson's Red Moon in autumn 1909, and she joined the Smart Set Company in 1910. Aida also began touring the vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after Walker's death in January 1911, Aida signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-black traveling show. Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. As early as 1908, she had begun organizing benefits to aid such institutions as the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls, and after her contract with S. H. Dudley expired, she devoted more of her energy to such projects, which allowed her to remain in New York. She also took an interest in developing the talents of younger women in the profession, hoping to pass along her vision of black performance as refined and elegant. She produced shows for two such female groups in 1913 and 1914—the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls. She encouraged them to work up original dance numbers and insisted that they don stylish costumes on stage. When Aida Overton Walker died suddenly of kidney failure on October 11, 1914, the African American entertainment community in New York went into deep mourning. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page, and hundreds of shocked entertainers descended on her residence to confirm a story they hoped was untrue. Walker left behind a legacy of polished performance and model professionalism. Her demand for respect and her generosity made her a beloved figure in African American theater circles. Sources: Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890-1915. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, Thomas L Riis; James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Aida Overton Walker (1880 - 1914), dazzled early-twentieth-century theater audiences with her original dance routines, her enchanting singing voice, and her penchant for elegant costumes. One of the premiere African American women artists of the turn of the century, she popularized the cakewalk and introduced it to English society. In addition to her attractive stage persona and highly acclaimed performances, she won the hearts of black entertainers for numerous benefit performances near the end of her tragically short career and for her cultivation of younger women performers. She was, in the words of the New York Age's Lester Walton, the exponent of "clean, refined artistic entertainment." Born in 1880 in New York City, a city in which she gained an education and considerable musical training. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined John Isham's Octoroons, one of the most influential black touring groups of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of the Black Patti Troubadours. Although the show consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising soubrettes of her day. In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, and appeared in all of their shows—The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907). Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Overton married and before long became one of the most admired and elegant African American couples on stage. While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the "funniest man in America," Aida quickly became an indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a positive, strong image of black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the plantation image of black women as plump mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in the shows; when In Dahomey was moved to England, Aida proved to be one of the strongest attractions. Society women invited her to their homes for private lessons in the exotic cakewalk that the Walkers had included in the show. After two seasons in England, the company returned to the United States in 1904, and it was Aida who was featured in a New York Herald interview about their tour. At times Walker asked his wife to interpret dances made famous by other performers—one example being the "Salome" dance that took Broadway by storm in the early 1900s—which she did with uneven success. After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida's career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Initially Walker returned to his boyhood home of Lawrence, Kansas, where his mother took care of him. In his absence, Aida took over many of his songs and dances to keep the company together. In early 1909, however, Bandanna Land was forced to close, and Aida temporarily retired from stage work to care for her husband, now clearly seriously ill. No doubt recognizing that he likely would not recover and that she alone could support the family, she returned to the stage in Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson's Red Moon in autumn 1909, and she joined the Smart Set Company in 1910. Aida also began touring the vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after Walker's death in January 1911, Aida signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-black traveling show. Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. As early as 1908, she had begun organizing benefits to aid such institutions as the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls, and after her contract with S. H. Dudley expired, she devoted more of her energy to such projects, which allowed her to remain in New York. She also took an interest in developing the talents of younger women in the profession, hoping to pass along her vision of black performance as refined and elegant. She produced shows for two such female groups in 1913 and 1914—the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls. She encouraged them to work up original dance numbers and insisted that they don stylish costumes on stage. When Aida Overton Walker died suddenly of kidney failure on October 11, 1914, the African American entertainment community in New York went into deep mourning. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page, and hundreds of shocked entertainers descended on her residence to confirm a story they hoped was untrue. Walker left behind a legacy of polished performance and model professionalism. Her demand for respect and her generosity made her a beloved figure in African American theater circles. Sources: Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890-1915. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, Thomas L Riis

Aida Overton Walker (1880-1914), dazzled early 20th century theater audiences with her original dance routines, her enchanting singing voice, and her penchant for elegant costumes. One of the premiere African American women artists of the turn of the century, she popularized the cakewalk and introduced it to English society. In addition to her attractive stage persona and highly acclaimed performances, she won the hearts of black entertainers for numerous benefit performances near the end of her tragically short career and for her cultivation of younger women performers. She was, in the words of the New York Age's Lester Walton, the exponent of "clean, refined artistic entertainment." Born in New York City, where she gained an education and considerable musical training. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined John Isham's Octoroons, one of the most influential black touring groups of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of the Black Patti Troubadours. Although the show consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising soubrettes of her day. In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, and appeared in all of their shows—The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907). Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Overton married and before long became one of the most admired and elegant African American couples on stage. While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the "funniest man in America," Aida quickly became an indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a positive, strong image of black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the plantation image of black women as plump mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in the shows; when In Dahomey was moved to England, Aida proved to be one of the strongest attractions. Society women invited her to their homes for private lessons in the exotic cakewalk that the Walkers had included in the show. After two seasons in England, the company returned to the United States in 1904, and it was Aida who was featured in a New York Herald interview about their tour. At times Walker asked his wife to interpret dances made famous by other performers—one example being the "Salome" dance that took Broadway by storm in the early 1900s—which she did with uneven success. After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida's career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Initially Walker returned to his boyhood home of Lawrence, Kansas, where his mother took care of him. In his absence, Aida took over many of his songs and dances to keep the company together. In early 1909, however, Bandanna Land was forced to close, and Aida temporarily retired from stage work to care for her husband, now clearly seriously ill. No doubt recognizing that he likely would not recover and that she alone could support the family, she returned to the stage in Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson's Red Moon in autumn 1909, and she joined the Smart Set Company in 1910. Aida also began touring the vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after Walker's death in January 1911, Aida signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-black traveling show. Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. As early as 1908, she had begun organizing benefits to aid such institutions as the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls, and after her contract with S. H. Dudley expired, she devoted more of her energy to such projects, which allowed her to remain in New York. She also took an interest in developing the talents of younger women in the profession, hoping to pass along her vision of black performance as refined and elegant. She produced shows for two such female groups in 1913 and 1914—the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls. She encouraged them to work up original dance numbers and insisted that they don stylish costumes on stage. When Aida Overton Walker died suddenly of kidney failure on October 11, 1914, the African American entertainment community in New York went into deep mourning. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page, and hundreds of shocked entertainers descended on her residence to confirm a story they hoped was untrue. Walker left behind a legacy of polished performance and model professionalism. Her demand for respect and her generosity made her a beloved figure in African American theater circles. Sources: Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890-1915. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, Thomas L Riis; Introducing Bert Williams by Camille F. Forbes, Luther S. White, Photographer; James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Aida Overton Walker is a name that should be more familiar to vaudeville and theater lovers than it is for she was the foremost African-American star of her generation which comprised the early years of the 20th century. Her national and even international fame was such that she was a living legend of black show business and in fact her vision of a world with dignified and respected black show business artists who did not have to demean themselves onstage was years ahead of reality. Her work helping young black artists and especially black women to become super-achievers and her own remarkable talents as singer, dancer, actress, comedienne and choreographer caused her to be one of the most admired and respected black women in America. Aida was born in 1880 in New York City and became known quickly for her talent as a dancer and singer as well as her great natural beauty. By 1895 she was a member of the famous black touring company disparagingly known as John Isham’s Octoroons and then joined the Black Patti Troubadours. This famous group was headed by Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, known as Sissieretta Jones, who became a famous soprano. She was called the “Black Patti” after the famous white soprano Adelina Patti, who was one of the foremost superstars of opera of her time. Her troupe, the Troubadours, consisted of a whole show that entertained black and sometimes also white audiences throughout the country. The show had some 40 performers but Adelina emerged as one of its leading stars. In 1898 she joined the rapidly rising comedy team of Bert Williams and George Walker, being featured in all of their landmark black performances including The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), the very famous In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905) and Bandanna Land (1907). Walker and Overton married soon after they began performing together. Her performance of Miss Hannah from Savannah in Sons of Ham caused a national sensation and furthermore Aida did the choreography for all of these big shows and emerged as the glue or catalyst that made the Walker-Williams shows work so well, as she worked behind the scenes with her husband supplying the themes and basic ideas for the shows, which then featured the great humor of Bert Williams. Although forgotten today, whereas Williams and Walker are more remembered, the three of them formed the most popular trio of “colored” entertainers in the world in the early years of the 20th century. Aida was also in demand as a choreographer for other shows such as Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson’s The Red Moon (1909). In these shows, although she performed in blackface, Aida refused to play black plantation stereotypes and an essential part of her political activism was to make the black woman stand tall and be an object of dignity and respect, even though she would attempt to make this statement through comedy and song. She became a huge hit in England from 1902 to 1904 with In Dahomey and was frequently hired for major society parties because she became known as the Queen of the Cakewalk from her dancing in the show and the British wanted to learn this remarkable dance so-named because originally those black dancers who did it well might receive a cake for a prize. In 1903 she played a command performance at Buckingham Palace for King Edward VII which added to her international reputation. In the midst of this success her husband allegedly contracted syphilis through affairs with other women and he collapsed during the run of Bandanna Land in 1908. She was able to fill in for her ailing husband, performing his part in drag and managing to save the company, but eventually he grew more ill and died in 1911 as the disease, which had symptoms of stuttering and memory loss was incurable at this time. Bert Williams went on to solo success with the Ziegfeld Follies and Aida was forced to develop into a solo artist as well, leading to her work as choreographer and featured star in Red Moon and she joined the famous African-American Smart Set Company in 1910 while her husband was still gravely ill. What she must have thought of her husband’s behavior is not recorded but her indomitable will to survive and continue her art and her work even despite his situation is clear. Ten days after her husband’s death she signed a contract to star with S. H. Dudley in an all-black traveling show. Walker was buried in his home town of Lawrence, Kansas, one of many black superstars of the time to die of syphilis which almost reached epidemic proportions in the black theatrical community around this time. Her post-Walker career was also distinctive as she emerged as a female superstar and was often invited to prominent white social gatherings to demonstrate the latest dances suitable for such events. Only Bert Williams among other black performers was able to do this and to work with white performers. For example she played the lead in Oscar Hammerstein’s 1912 revival of Salome at the Victoria Theater in New York, a role she had essayed in the black theater since the initial Salome craze of the early years of the century. Aida was also an activist for black causes years and years before this was something that was popularly accepted. She raised significant funds for the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls and worked to promote opportunities for young black women in the entertainment business through her connections. She hoped to promote a new generation of refined and elegant black performers free of the hamstringing stereotypes of the previous decades. To this end in 1913 and 1914 she promoted the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls and produced shows for these troupes to show black women as original creative talent. This she did despite suffering from a number of disabling illnesses that beset her after the death of her husband. In the 1910s she was described by critics as “the best Negro comedienne today” and “the most fascinating and vivacious female comedy actress the Negro race has ever produced”. Her ability to mesmerize an audience and her standard numbers performed in drag which she perfected while filling in for her ailing husband were legendary. Indeed each of her performances in shows or in vaudeville featured one of her famous drag numbers. And then just as suddenly it was all over. Just 34 years of age, Aida died quickly on October 1, 1914 from kidney failure and hundreds of people came to her house to honor her and to grieve. A true legend of black vaudeville and theater had passed. Every black female entertainer of note in this world owes a great debt to this pioneering entertainer who envisioned a world which honored and respected black talent and who died at the height of her fame. Sources: The American Vaudeville Museum & UA Collection; James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Aida Overton Walker is a name that should be more familiar to vaudeville and theater lovers than it is for she was the foremost African-American star of her generation which comprised the early years of the 20th century. Her national and even international fame was such that she was a living legend of black show business and in fact her vision of a world with dignified and respected black show business artists who did not have to demean themselves onstage was years ahead of reality. Her work helping young black artists and especially black women to become super-achievers and her own remarkable talents as singer, dancer, actress, comedienne and choreographer caused her to be one of the most admired and respected black women in America. Aida was born in 1880 in New York City and became known quickly for her talent as a dancer and singer as well as her great natural beauty. By 1895 she was a member of the famous black touring company disparagingly known as John Isham’s Octoroons and then joined the Black Patti Troubadours. This famous group was headed by Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, known as Sissieretta Jones, who became a famous soprano. She was called the “Black Patti” after the famous white soprano Adelina Patti, who was one of the foremost superstars of opera of her time. Her troupe, the Troubadours, consisted of a whole show that entertained black and sometimes also white audiences throughout the country. The show had some 40 performers but Adelina emerged as one of its leading stars. In 1898 she joined the rapidly rising comedy team of Bert Williams and George Walker, being featured in all of their landmark black performances including The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), the very famous In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905) and Bandanna Land (1907). Walker and Overton married soon after they began performing together. Her performance of Miss Hannah from Savannah in Sons of Ham caused a national sensation and furthermore Aida did the choreography for all of these big shows and emerged as the glue or catalyst that made the Walker-Williams shows work so well, as she worked behind the scenes with her husband supplying the themes and basic ideas for the shows, which then featured the great humor of Bert Williams. Although forgotten today, whereas Williams and Walker are more remembered, the three of them formed the most popular trio of “colored” entertainers in the world in the early years of the 20th century. Aida was also in demand as a choreographer for other shows such as Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson’s The Red Moon (1909). In these shows, although she performed in blackface, Aida refused to play black plantation stereotypes and an essential part of her political activism was to make the black woman stand tall and be an object of dignity and respect, even though she would attempt to make this statement through comedy and song. She became a huge hit in England from 1902 to 1904 with In Dahomey and was frequently hired for major society parties because she became known as the Queen of the Cakewalk from her dancing in the show and the British wanted to learn this remarkable dance so-named because originally those black dancers who did it well might receive a cake for a prize. In 1903 she played a command performance at Buckingham Palace for King Edward VII which added to her international reputation. In the midst of this success her husband allegedly contracted syphilis through affairs with other women and he collapsed during the run of Bandanna Land in 1908. She was able to fill in for her ailing husband, performing his part in drag and managing to save the company, but eventually he grew more ill and died in 1911 as the disease, which had symptoms of stuttering and memory loss was incurable at this time. Bert Williams went on to solo success with the Ziegfeld Follies and Aida was forced to develop into a solo artist as well, leading to her work as choreographer and featured star in Red Moon and she joined the famous African-American Smart Set Company in 1910 while her husband was still gravely ill. What she must have thought of her husband’s behavior is not recorded but her indomitable will to survive and continue her art and her work even despite his situation is clear. Ten days after her husband’s death she signed a contract to star with S. H. Dudley in an all-black traveling show. Walker was buried in his home town of Lawrence, Kansas, one of many black superstars of the time to die of syphilis which almost reached epidemic proportions in the black theatrical community around this time. Her post-Walker career was also distinctive as she emerged as a female superstar and was often invited to prominent white social gatherings to demonstrate the latest dances suitable for such events. Only Bert Williams among other black performers was able to do this and to work with white performers. For example she played the lead in Oscar Hammerstein’s 1912 revival of Salome at the Victoria Theater in New York, a role she had essayed in the black theater since the initial Salome craze of the early years of the century. Aida was also an activist for black causes years and years before this was something that was popularly accepted. She raised significant funds for the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls and worked to promote opportunities for young black women in the entertainment business through her connections. She hoped to promote a new generation of refined and elegant black performers free of the hamstringing stereotypes of the previous decades. To this end in 1913 and 1914 she promoted the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls and produced shows for these troupes to show black women as original creative talent. This she did despite suffering from a number of disabling illnesses that beset her after the death of her husband. In the 1910s she was described by critics as “the best Negro comedienne today” and “the most fascinating and vivacious female comedy actress the Negro race has ever produced”. Her ability to mesmerize an audience and her standard numbers performed in drag which she perfected while filling in for her ailing husband were legendary. Indeed each of her performances in shows or in vaudeville featured one of her famous drag numbers. And then just as suddenly it was all over. Just 34 years of age, Aida died quickly on October 1, 1914 from kidney failure and hundreds of people came to her house to honor her and to grieve. A true legend of black vaudeville and theater had passed. Every black female entertainer of note in this world owes a great debt to this pioneering entertainer who envisioned a world which honored and respected black talent and who died at the height of her fame. Sources: James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Kansas City Museum Collection; Hall Studio (NY) , circa 1909

Dancer Ida Forsyne as "Topsy," with Abbie Mitchell's Tennessee Students in London, England. Ida Forsyne, jazz dancer who was named by poet Langston Hughes as one of the twelve best dancers of all time, was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her mother became a domestic servant when she was two years old, after the disappearance of her father. At the age of ten, she was dancing and singing for small sums of money at the local candy store and house-rent parties, and she cakewalked for twenty-five cents a day at the Chicago World's Fair, traveling through the festival site in a wagon with a ragtime band to drum up trade. Many shows originated in Chicago at the time, and so Forsynes haunted the Alhambra Theater, watching rehearsals of such shows as Coontown 400 and The South before the War. At age fourteen Forsyne ran away with a tab show, The Black Bostonians, in which everyone did their own specialties. She sang "My Hannah Lady" and also performed a Buck Dance in her inimitable eccentric style that includes rhythmic stepping and legomania. The finale of the show was a plantation scene that included the entire cast. When the show broke up in Bute, Montana, Forsyne adopted a five-year-old boy as a "prop" and sang her way back home to Chicago by walking down the aisles of the railroad coaches, hand-in-hand with him, harmonizing "On the Banks of the Wabash" as she passed the child's hat and collected enough money to pay fare and little more. In 1898 the fifteen-year-old joined Sisseretta Jones' Black Patti Troubadours. "A girl in the show was sick, so I went down and did my number, ‘My Hannah Lady,' and got the job at $15 a week," Forsyne told Marshall Stearns. "I was the only young girl in the company of twenty-six. For my specialty, I pushed a baby carriage across the stage and sang a lullaby, ‘You're Just a Little Nigger but You're Mine All Mine,' and no one thought of objecting in those day." The show had a cakewalking contest at every performance and Forsyne and partner won it seven nights straight in a row by adding legomania and tumbling in the breaks. Forsyne had the ability to perform any step she saw. In 1899, on her sixteenth birthday, Forsyne and the Black Patti troupe arrived in San Francisco, and remembers that they stayed at a fine white hotel and ate together at a long table, and that "everyone was so nice to us." Returning to New York, she easily got jobs working in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Coney Island, working in minstrel-styled shows such as Henderson's Big Theater (at Coney Island) with famous acts like Eddie Cantor. It was at Coney Island that Forsyne lost her voice in an "all song-and-dance" format in which performers would sing a verse of the song, then a chorus, and then dance a chorus. "I was like a coon shouter until my voice gave out," she said about her voice which was in a strong alto-range. She thereafter learned how to put a song across by "sort of talking it." In 1902, Forsyne joined the original Smart Set, an all- colored show by the white producer Gus Hill and featuring Ernest Hogan, Billy McClain, and the Hun Brothers, and in which she talked the song, "Moana" and performed a solo jazz dance. She then joined Will Marion Cook's The Southerners on the New York Roof Garden, with a mixed cast of thirty-five performers. In 1905 she went abroad with The Tennessee Students, a troupe of seventeen performers (including Abbie Mitchell, comedy dancer Ernest Hogan, and sand dancer Henry Williams), many of whom played stringed instruments and sang in a transitional style between ragtime and jazz. When the show opened at the Palace Theater in London in 1906, Forsyne (her picture on the front cover of the program) was the billing star, singing "Topsy, the Famous Negro Dancer." With her radiating personality and facial expression, she was immediately noticed. Wrote the Daily Telegraph: "If Topsy is not soon the talk of the town we are very much mistaken." For the succeeding nine years. Forsyne toured Europe under the management of the Marinelli Agency, the largest in Europe, in what would be the peak of her career. The entire first year she played the Moulin Rouge in Paris, singing and dancing her fast mixture of eccentric steps. She was then booked throughout England where for the first time she saw Bill Robinson and Ralph Cooper. At the Alhambra Theatre in London, she introduced her Sack dance to special music with a ballet company. A stagehand carried her onstage in a big potato sack; she threw one leg out, then an arm, and so on until, dumped in the middle of the stage, she danced before a backup chorus line of ballet dancers who were paid extra to appear in blackface. While the performance was considered "arty," Forsyne was improvising jazz steps. She quickly rose to such fame that she gave a command performance for the Royal family. In 1911, in the middle of her Moscow dance program, tiny Forsyne (she wore a size two shoe) suddenly inserted a series of improvised kazotsky kicks into her routine and brought the house down; she was immediately hailed as the "greatest Russian dancer of then all." She thereafter closed her act with kazotsky kicks-- which began from a squat, arms folded at the chest, and legs kicking out, first one leg and then another. Though Russian dancers usually stood up between steps, Forsyne could not wait. She changed steps and traveled across the stage in a crouch, working out new combinations. She flung both legs out in front of her and touched her toes with her hands before coming down in time with the music. She also mixed down-steps with up-steps, and cross-ankle steps, and as a finale, would kazotsky all the way across the stage, and return backwards. European theaters booked Forsyne for nine years without a break. Forsyne popularized Russian dancing in the United States, after pioneering that style abroad. But she was, above and beyond, a jazz dancer. She remembered many early jazz tap steps, among them "Going to the World's Fair," which was strut in which one put both feet together and moved forward on the toes. Another step was "Scratchin' the Gravel," or the "Sooey," a short sliding motion alternately on each foot; Forsyne described it as a two-step with a dip. In 1914, Forsyne returned to New York from touring abroad and performed at the Lincoln and Lafayette theaters. High class society people went to the Lafayette and the management didn't present of-color blues singers, comedians and Shake dancers from T.O.B.A., as did at the Lincoln." In 1916, Forsyne saw Darktown Follies and remembers that it was the talk of the town. "Eddie Retor was featured in his smooth military routine, and Toots Davis was doing his Over the Top and Through the Trenches, and they were new steps then," she told Marshall Stearns. For two years (from 1920 to 1922), Forsyne worked as a personal maid, onstage and off, to Sophie Tucker, earning $50 a week. Onstage, Tucker sang thirteen songs, accompanied by pianist Al Seeger, and wanted a dancer to help whip up applause at the end of the show—and Forsyne filled that position. The act broke up in Washington, D.C. where, on the Keith circuit, new rules disallowed black performers to appear onstage with a white performer unless they wore blackface. Furthermore, no performer of color working backstage was permitted to watch the show. Tucker refused to have Forsyne don blackface, and while Forsyne was banned from the show, she was permitted to watch the show from the wings. By 1924, Forsyne was back on the T.O.B.A. black vaudeville circuit as one of six dancing girls with blues singer Mamie Smith's act. After touring the South with the late version of The Smart Set, Forsyne returned to New York where Harlem nightclubs were thriving. Refused after auditioning at the Cotton Club, Connie's Inn, and the Nest, because of the preference for light-skinned and scantily-clad chorus girls, Forsyne was promised a job at Small's Paradise, which never panned out. As did a job working at the New World Club in Atlantic City in 1927, which was recommended to her by Jack "Legs" Diamond. Forsyne was apparently rejected for not approving of the abbreviated costumes which were de rigeur for female jazz dancers. Back on T.O.B.A., Forsyne earned $35 a week working with Bessie Smith, a show that allowed her to reprise her Russian specialty. She left Smith's company in 1928, vowing she would never tour the South again. After working three-and-a-half years as a domestic, and then as an elevator girl, Forsyne quit dancing. In 1963, however, she played the part of Mrs. Noah in Green Pastures. That same year, she appeared with Rex Ingraham in The Emperor Jones. As late as 1951, Forsyne assisted Ruthanna Boris for the choreography for the New York City Ballet's "The Cakewalk," choreographed by George Balanchine. In 1962, at the age of seventy-nine, Forsyne could still perform a cartwheel. She devoted most of her spare time to visiting various hospitals where she entertained and cheered up sick friends. By 1966 she herself retired to the Concord Baptist Nursing Home in Brooklyn, where she died in 1983, at the age of 100. Sources: Marshall and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (1968); Cary D. Wintz and Paul Finkelman, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Vol I. (2004); Blacks in Blackface: A Sourcebook on Early Black Musical Shows (Vol 1, 2nd ed.) by Henry T Sampson