BIRD DRINKING RAINDROPS POSEA lot of yoga teachers are former actors. One
reason is that the art of acting is the art of being
human, and yoga helps you rediscover the depth
and the possibility of being human.
Acting is a very challenging business for a
woman because you are held up to unreason-
able standards, and often the way you look
affects your income and your artistic fulfillment.
I started practicing yoga regularly so that I would
continue to look a certain way. I stayed with it
because I found I could do challenging poses;
but what really won in the end was the way yoga
made me feel, which proved to be much more
transformational than how I looked or what I
could do.
I have played Julia in The Two Gentlemen of
Verona, Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Beatrice in
Much Ado About Nothing—sixteen Shakespeare
plays over the course of my career. I miss the
ensemble and working on a team, and I miss
Shakespeare. But while acting itself is fantastic,
competing for jobs can be dreadful. I lost parts
for being too young, too old, too tall, too short,
too ethnic, and not ethnic enough.
One time, during a callback, I overheard a
casting director talking the director out of hiring
me. He said, “Dana is like a cake that has frosting
but no insides.” I have been accused of a lot of
things, but not having depth isn’t one of them! I
didn’t get that part.
I haven’t acted for a long time. Great jobs will
come up, and I’ll consider them reasonably and
think, “Would I really rather do this instead of
what I’m doing now?”
The answer is usually no; my work as a yoga
therapist and yoga teacher is so satisfying and
means so much to me.
And even though yoga itself is a competitive
business, and there’s a hustle to it, the worst day
in yoga is never as horrible as a bad day in acting.