Dana L. Harrison ’81

Dana died March 9, 2018, at home in Berkeley, Calif., of a rare, fast-moving cancer. In the words of her brother Michael, “Her home hospice turned into a loving, reverent, and often raucous celebration of her life.”

At Princeton, Dana majored in history and served as president of Terrace Club, where her free spirit and practical mindset were always evident. Upon graduation, she moved to the Bay Area to work in business and finance. But in 1998, after a car struck her, she left the corporate world for the arts.

Dana’s business skills proved invaluable at Burning Man, where she created the event’s money-management systems. In 2008, Dana produced How to Survive the Apocalypse, a rock opera set at Burning Man, with sold-out runs in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Subsequently Dana was managing director of Theater Bay Area and executive director of the Ridhwan Foundation, a Berkeley spiritual education institute.

In remembering Dana, a colleague described her as “a cosmic explosion of life — ferociously intelligent, burning with passion, overflowing with compassion, and hard as nails when she needed to be.”

Dana is survived by her mother, Roslyn; her brother, Michael; her sister, Julia Matheson; and their spouses and children. She is remembered by all who loved her, including a circle of longtime friends she named her “intentional family.”