Birth: 1961 Death: 2024 Cynthia “Cindy” Pepper lived a beautiful life filled with love, passion, curiosity, creativity and optimism. Cynthia devoted her life to family and creative pursuits.She passed peacefully surrounded by her loving family and holding her husband’s hand.
Cynthia was born to Maggie Weiss and Sanford Pepper, the owner of a 4th generation business in Salt Lake City, where she spent her formative years. Influenced by her mother’s family legacy of Fantasy Records and the Blackhawk Nightclub, she chose a career in the arts.Cynthia began her performance career with Virginia Tanner’s Children’s Dance Theatre at the University of Utah prior to the age of three.
She performed around the world with Virginia and at the age of eight danced at the White House for the president.Graduating with a BFA in Dance from California Institute of the Arts, Cynthia performed with Bella Lewitsky Company at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.Shortly after, Cynthia was enamored with the beauty of Marin County where she relocated.
She spent many years teaching dance to mostly children at Marin Ballet and Marin Dance Theatre and choreographing and producing dance-related events and dance films, writing books, scripts and generally being creative. Cynthia received an MA in Creative Arts from San Francisco State University and continued to produce dance, film and art projects, mostly in the Bay Area. She created outreach dance programs to bring live musicians into the schools throughout the Bay Area, educating thousands of children in over thirty world dance forms.
She estimated that she taught over 8,000 students.Cynthia also created 14 original short dance films for television, internet and international film festivals. Alongside her producing partner, Melinda Darlington-Bach, she produced Emmy award-winning fashion shows, performances, and short films for Disney, Nickelodeon, and Sesame Street.
Cynthia spent much of the last decade presenting oil, acrylic, and collage multi-media paintings in gallery showings and her artwork graces many homes.Some of her creative legacy can be found at CynthiaPepper.com.
In 1990, Cynthia married Val Hornstein, a softball-playing lawyer. Along with her love for the arts, Cynthia made her family her top priority. She was enormously proud to have raised two beautiful daughters, to have created a loving household for her family and to have had the love of hundreds of friends.
Cynthia’s life was taken by an incurable metastatic kidney cancer that she fought for more than four years, with courage, determination and grace. She led a full life during that fight.Cynthia is survived by her husband of 34 years, Val Dawson Hornstein, her daughters Olivia “Sunbeam” Dora Hornstein and Rose “Rosebud” Sarah Hornstein, her siblings Lisa Pepper-Satkin and Mark (Margaret) Pepper, and her mother J.
Maggie Weiss. In lieu of flowers please consider a contribution to honor Cynthia’s life and memory to Congregation Rodef Sholom (San Rafael, CA) and the UCSF Medical Center. Honor with Flowers In memory of Cynthia Plant a Living Memorial In memory of Cynthia.
