Pana Columbus, playwright, author, uses the arts as a powerful tool for personal and community transformation
Press release from Earthaven Ecovillage:
Pana Columbus is fascinated by the process of transformation. It is her life work to support individuals and communities evolve. The most powerful tool she’s discovered to support this process is stories.
Her whole life has been in the “story business”. She started out as a New York actress, then became a playwright and director, published her first book and is currently working on her first screenplay. But it wasn’t until she went on a 4-year journey around the world that Pana realized that stories, besides just entertainment, could also be a powerful catalyst for change. On her travels, as she spent time with many different cultures, she became fascinated by their rituals. “I realized that these traditions had been using the same tools I’d been using all my life in the theatre: music, story, dance, song, but they were using these tools to help people evolve.”
Pana started writing plays that used the arts to help catalyze community transformation. Her play, “The New Earth”, performed in 2006 at the Zoellner Arts Center, was the catalyst for the creation of an environmentally based charter school in Pennsylvania, which now serves over 350 students. Her production of the play “Gilgamesh” performed at Allentown Symphony Hall and hailed by the Morning Call newspaper as “An ambitious and stunning accomplishment…” was the catalyst for the founding of a non-profit that launched an inner-city, classical music program at an Allentown school, which was recently honored at the White House (one of three schools nationally).
But her love of helping communities evolve can only be matched by her passion for supporting individuals through their personal transformations. A transplant with her husband and daughter to Asheville, Pana now offers private coaching sessions, talks and workshops around the city.
On Friday, January 24th at 7pm, at the French Broad Food Cooperative’s Movement & Learning Center, Pana will be offering a free sample night of her transformation workshop, “The Elements of Transformation”, an intensive all-day workshop for those seeking support in making changes in their lives, which will be presented at Earthaven Ecovillage on February 15th from 10am-5pm. For more information, please contact Arjuna at arjuna@earthaven.org or at (828) 669-0114.
Pana’s memoir, She Wore Blue Invoking the Water, is available at Malaprop’s Bookstore.
www.panacolumbus.com
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