Pepper
Alexandria Bio
Hailing from Berkeley, California, Pepper Alexandria is
a multi-talented artist and performer.
Born and raised in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, she fled screaming
as soon as she was
old enough. After a brief detour through
Boston,
Massachusetts, New Orleans, Louisiana,
and Hollywood,
California, she came to the Bay Area
in the late 1960’s.
She spent the early days of her residence
in the Bay Area
building a huge network of underground
celebrity friends.
She had been studying
dance since she was six years
old, but at some point during those
days, she discovered
Near Eastern dance when she caught
a performance by
a Turkish dancer. She was so taken
with the style that she
was soon studying under that same dancer,
Princess
Ayesha. By 1979, she found herself
in Egypt for a month
studying under the famed Banat Maazin
Ghawazee of
Luxor. She has done many of the traditional
and folkloric
dances of the Near East, but tends
to specialize in
classical Egyptian Cabaret, and Banat
Maazin style
Ghawazee. She is the director of the
premiere Ghawazee
troupe in the United States.
Her dance career has been
nothing less than stellar ever since. She never fails to impress as a master
teacher, creative choreographer, and designer of dazzling costumes. She
is also the producer of many Near Eastern Dance shows. Most recently and
notably is "Carnival of Stars TM," which happens every November in Hayward,
California, and features many famous stars of the belly dance world and
many equally famous Underground cartoonists, combining her two loves.
Alexandria is internationally
known and has been honored with numerous awards and accolades including
"Ethnic Dancer of the Year" in 2000.
She is the only American dancer to ever be asked to perform for the
Near Eastern Studies Department at
U.C. Berkeley. She has performed and taught at countless Belly Dance
conventions and festivals, including
Jo Wise’s Festival Fantasia in London, England.
She has performed on "Creature
Features"
with John Stanley as the in-house belly dancer, and is now
reviving that tradition on "Cinema
Insomnia" with Mr. Lobo. But one of Alexandria’s favorite claims to
belly dancing fame is that she has
performed for many of the Bay Area’s population of underground
Cartoonists, including Hal Robbins,
S. Clay Wilson, Spain Rodriguez, Vaughn Bode, Mark Bode, and
Larry Todd. She has remained friends
with many of these gentlemen to this very day, which is probably why
she has earned the illustrious title
"The Queen of the Underground."
Having made friends with
so many cartoonists, Alexandria posed as a model for many of them, and
is the
inspiration for the famous Holly in
"Dr. Atomics Comics." She has also worked for Mark Bode making the
famous soft sculpture Bode dolls. Already
a painter, couture designer, pattern maker and performing artist,
this series of events led her to choose
to widen her field of artistic endeavor to include cartooning and
illustration.
She is the mastermind
behind "Belly Dance Comix ®" and "Clone Comics ®." She is also
the official
cartoonist for the Gilded Serpent,
an online 'zine, and is the cover artist for the Desert Dance Festival.
Alexandria has also created many dance-themed
coloring books.
Websites where Alexandria’s work can be seen include:
www.ghawazee.com
www.carnivalofstars.com
www.myspace.com/pepperalexandria
www.clonecomics.com
www.bellydancecomix.com
www.bodedolls.com
www.gildedserpent.com
Belly Dance Comics ® $5.00
Clone
Comics ® #1
$4.00 Postage Paid
www.clonecomics.com
BellyDanceComics.com & BellyDanceComix.com
Are Rights Reserved!
Belly Dance Comix ®
& Clone Comics ®
Are Registered Marks
of Pepper Alexandria & James E. White
Registered in the United States
Patent and Trademark Office.
Copyright 2011.