Dana Harrison
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Dana Harrison (November 19, 1960 – March 9, 2018) was an American business professional, arts community and non-profit organizer, producer, director and entrepreneur. Born Dana Lynn Harrison on November 19, 1960, in
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Bryn Mawr (, from Welsh language, Welsh for 'big hill') is a census-designated place (CDP) located in Pennsylvania, United States. It is located just west of Philadelphia along Lancaster Avenue, also known as U.S. Route 30 in Pennsylvania, U.S. ...
, she spent her childhood in
Westfield, New Jersey Westfield is a Town (New Jersey), town in Union County, New Jersey, Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located southwest of Manhattan. As of the 2020 United States census, the town's population was 31,032, an increase of 716 (+2.4% ...
. She graduated from Westfield High School in 1977 at age 16 and at age 20 obtained a degree in history from
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
, where she also served as the President of Terrace Club. Having moved to the Bay Area of northern California after college, she initially pursued a career in finance that included launching early online trading and brokerage services for Charles Schwab. However, in 1998, citing an incident in which she was injured by a driver running a red light as a wake-up call, she changed her focus to align with her long interest in creative pursuits and joined the staff of the
Burning Man Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the ...
festival. Nicknamed "Biz Babe" by the Burning Man community, she established the first ticketing system for the event, and later expanded her responsibilities to other financial and administrative matters, including the creation and running of
Black Rock City, LLC The Burning Man Project is an American organization that annually plans, manages, and builds Burning Man on the dry lake of the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada. The company coordinates the year-round, behind-the-scenes work needed to bui ...
, the business entity that organizes the festival each year. She remained an advisory board member of the related Black Rock Arts Foundation for most of her life, and was featured in the 2005 documentary film ''Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock''. in 1999, she helped to found Planet Care, a non-profit performing humanitarian work in
Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
, and served as its executive director until the organization's merger with the Global Health Access Project (GHAP). That same year, she purchased a former industrial building in Oakland, California which had been illegally converted to residential use, and began transforming it into The Noodle Factory, intended to become an affordable arts and performance space. Having originally anticipated that her Burning Man colleagues would help to support and develop the project, Harrison ended up shouldering the significant financial and renovations burden alone. In order to keep the project afloat, she rented the space to a variety of tenants including event organizers, and by 2003 it had become a popular venue for
rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...
s. Unable to overcome the monetary and logistical difficulties of the site, she finally arranged to pass ownership of the building to the non-profit Northern California Land Trust in 2005. Harrison formed Post-Playa Productions in 2005 in order to stage the Burning Man-inspired rock opera ''How To Survive The Apocalypse: A Burning Opera'', based on a libretto by
Erik Davis Erik Davis (born June 12, 1967) is an American writer, scholar, journalist and public speaker whose writings have ranged from rock criticism to cultural analysis to creative explorations of esoteric mysticism. He is perhaps best known for his b ...
and composer Mark Nichols and directed by Christopher Fuelling. Late in her life, she spent four years as managing director and community liaison for Theater Bay Area, a service organization for performing arts companies, and from 2015 she served as a director of the Ridhwan Foundation, a spiritual organization promoting the teachings of A. H. Almaas.


Death

Harrison died on March 9, 2018, in Berkeley, California of an uncommon fast-developing form of cancer.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Dana 1960 births 2018 deaths Deaths from cancer in California American women arts administrators American arts administrators Burning Man People from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Princeton University alumni Westfield High School (New Jersey) alumni People from Westfield, New Jersey