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Cynthia Pepper was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1961. As a child, she toured with Virginia Tanner’s internationally recognized Children’s Dance Theatre for 10 years performing throughout the United States, including The White House Conference on Children (for President Richard Nixon) and The Kennedy Center. She performed professionally with The Utah Opera Company, Donald Byrd, Loretta Livingston and Bella Lewitzky. From 1985 to 1989, Cynthia worked as a magician’s assistant with Robert C. Pritikin of The Mansion Hotel in San Francisco and with Dan Summers at The Magic Castle in Los Angeles.
Cynthia was a Rotary International Exchange Student in Denmark in 1978 and completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from California Institute of the Arts, and a Masters Degree from San Francisco State University with an emphasis on film. Since forming CPCollaborations in 1985 (CPCC) many dance and film projects have come forth: including teaching, performing and choreographing throughout the world.
Her non-profit CPCollaborations has received grants from The Marin Community Foundation, The Marin Arts Council, The Zellerbach Family Fund, Dance Bay Area, The National Endowment for the Arts, Dance Films Association, CITIBANK, Union Bank of California and most recently American Express.
Cynthia has produced and directed fashion shows for The Academy of Art, ZOZA clothing line and award-winning hair shows for Trevor Sorbie and Redken International hair products. Cynthia choreographed educational videos for Japan Television and national commercials for MARS Candy, Wachovia Bank, Glaxo Smith Kline, and Hilton Hotels.
Currently Cynthia has directed dance outreach programs and performing arts festivals for over 24 schools in Marin County. To create interesting venues for her dance films CPCC created “FOOTAGE Dance Film Festival” in 1997 as the first dance film festival in the West Coast showcasing dance films from throughout the world. Cynthia continues to teach dance and film at San Francisco State University, Cyprus College, Mills College, CalArts, California Film Institute, Marin Ballet and UC Berkeley.
Her award winning dance collection called FILMS THAT DANCE™ has been distributed worldwide at numerous film and dance festivals and university dance programs. Since the summer of 2000, Cynthia has choreographed 13 plays for The Marin Shakespeare Company and has received a Dean Goodman Critic Circle Award for her choreography. Cynthia is a founding partner in Xanadu Entertainment, a dance film production company currently creating dance films for PBS, commercial television, Chabot Science and Space Lab, Sesame Street™ and all innovative collaborators that come their way! In 2012 their film “Much Too Much” with Andain will go on tour with Mavie Marcos and the film they assisted in casting called: “The D Word” directed by James Redford is going to the Sundance Film Festival.