Life & Work with Cynthia Giannini

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Cynthia Giannini.

Hi Cynthia, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.

Hello,  I am the visionary and artistic director of Artists Amongst Us, a not for profit organization devoted to the performing arts and education.

I credit my immigrant parents, (father from Italy and mother from China), who introduced me to the fine arts when I was young. They supported my classical ballet training and piano lessons to help enrich my childhood experience and provide a friendship base outside of my academics. I devoted myself fully to these activities and at the age of 13 made the decision to choose ballet as a primary focus. My father, being a high school principal of our school district, helped create a program for the gifted dancers to manage our many hours of training and support our education.

Upon my graduating, I moved to NYC to pursue my ballet career on a full scholarship at the Joffrey Ballet School. Soon after, I was chosen to dance for the Joffrey II ballet company, the farm team. We traveled the US and joined the main Company for large-scale performances of their full-length story ballets.

After three years in the Joffrey II company, I was handpicked by the late Robert Joffrey to dance for his prestigious main company. I stepped right into the soloist roles, he had chosen for me, and worked my way into the repertoire and onto some of the greatest stages of the world.

 

During our summer residencies in Telluride, I fell in love with Colorado so after my ballet career ending injury, I convinced my husband it was in our best interest to move CO and create our family.

Drawn to a spiritual way of life, I was inspired to cultivate my children through a program called Peace Jam and share with our mountain community, the work of some of our ” living saints”. This nonreligious program offered life lessons through community service and global outreach. We studied and shared the childhood stories of 12 Noble Peace Prize laureates. Through these lessons, we learned how one person can make an important impact in the world by their leadership in supporting peace, diversity, inclusion, social justice, and generosity of spirit, within their  unique culture. I was deeply inspired in my studies of these Laureates.

During this time I began teaching and coaching young dancers in ballet. I brought and directed the Joffrey ballet summer intensives to Denver to bolster my students’ training with teachers from different dance disciplines. I began choreographing and creating solos for competitions and school dance shows.

I taught and coached pre-professionals at the Colorado Ballet Academy for three years and at Colorado Academy’s Conservatory. My primary students are currently following my footsteps in NYC, living out their unique dreams in the dance world.

I was introduced to Argentine Tango in 2011 and devoted much time to studying with exceptional teachers. I began choreographing tango duets with various partners, and performing in shows that I co created and developed here in Denver.

In 2017 my tango partner and I won the title of stage tango champions at the Official US Tango Championship and were invited to represent the US in Buenos Aires that same year as semi-finalists in The World Cup of Tango.I returned to the Denver tango scene inspired to teach and broaden my experience in community building and began teaching and creating social tango events.

After the pandemic, I was renewed with inspiration to create a new tango show and reach larger audiences through my work in choreography and live music. I choreographed, staged, and produced “Destinos Crusados” a Tango and Tarot show that followed my life in tango in a colorful and poetic narrative of how destines cross and we learn about love. We enjoyed it’s success and before it was over I began creating “Sol y Luna” a modern tango love story.

Along this timeline at the end of 2021, I was meeting many artists and began curating salons out of my home. The salons offered musicians, dancers, storytellers, sculptors, and filmmakers an opportunity to share their work in an intimate setting with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances interested in getting up close and personal with a Q&A and social time amongst each other.

We began the process of our non for profit status in 2022 and have since moved into a venue where we can offer these “Artists Amongst Us” experiences.  We are currently managing our development in the “sanctuary” of a restored church in the Spear neighborhood of Denver, and are growing daily. My goal is to cultivate a distinct culture of community centered in the arts and wellness to serve and educate the people of Denver.

Since October of 2023, Artists Amongst Us hosts…

-BASK sound journeys
-Social tango events
-Provides actors and dancers rehearsals and private lesson space
-Gaga dance classes
-Denver Social Society events
-Tea ceremonies
-Yoga
-Men’s groups
-Women’s gatherings
-Intimo Tango, our international tango school that hosts the leading dancers, teachers, and musicians of tango in Denver and abroad and offers weekly beginner lessons and immersive study weekends quarterly.
-Artist’s salons
-Creating, directing, and producing, “Sol y Luna” a modern tango love story, to premier a preview of what is coming… at the end of December at the Ellie Caulkins Studio Loft.

I invite you to join us in support of our mission in fostering diversity, inclusivity, and social justice within the vehicle of art by offering quality education, performances, and community outreach and empowering emerging artists in a performative space, with the purpose of elevating our culture in Denver.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

The offerings and events have run smooth and opportunities keep presenting themselves yet it has been an emotional and energetic roller coaster, to say the least. I have gone from monumental inspiration to management overload. I have had many sleepless nights and very little rest for the last five months since I moved our home base to our current space and hit the ground running. I am primarily managing most everything myself.

I have faith the team will arrive as we have many enthusiastic professionals coming to visit and beginning to see the space as a place to offer their work. I am devoting my energies to this vision and am now inviting volunteers and people interested in the arts to begin their work with us.

I am merely the visionary, creator, believer, and doer. I know now that what I need help with is mostly administrative, and managerial. We are coming along with our marketing, branding, websites, board of directors, grant writing, business plan, and 1st year projected operational budgets.

We have not yet received funding from any outside sources for our work. I say we and not me because it is about the people that share in the belief that we will define, with grace, the opportunities to uplift our community and spirit through music, dance, wellness and art as a collective.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

My devotion to the arts has defined my life and supported my passions.

My multicultural upbringing and creative life granted me the opportunities to cultivate an eye for design that is universal and timeless. I am detail-oriented and have always delivered a positive outcome. I have patience and the grit to follow through with my visions in highest intention, and I enjoy encouraging my partners to do so as well in joining our talents and co creating.

I love to inspire and deeply connect people through the language of art and to challenge the status quo.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from growing up.
I grew up in Walnut Creek, CA.

I loved the outdoors and all living things. I spent most of my free time in the creek behind my house or in the tree fort my father built for me.  I loved studying the interactions of nature and it’s peaceful sounds. These were the greatest pleasures and gifts for me as a child because I felt a deep connection to the natural world.

Pricing:

• Donation based
• Classes from $15 to $25
• Private instruction $120
• Events $15 to $125
• Rental of venue $50 to $555

Contact Info:

• Website: intimotango.com
• Instagram: @artistsamongstusdenver and @intimoargentinetango @thesanctuary_artsandculture
• Facebook: @Intimo Tango and @Artists Amongst Us

Image Credits
John Miller, Byron Swezy, Tony Brown, and Carolina M. Joyce