What it takes to be a mermaid: strong lungs, sequins & a R43 000 tail
There has been a marked uptick in mermaiding, a calling of the siren’s song
THERE is blood in the water at the Aquatic and Fitness Centre where Angela Murray Pavlovsky, 40, emerges from the pool with knuckles raw and red, having scraped them during a punishing 50m sprint with a
4.5kg weight.
“That was hard as hay-el,” Pavlovsky drawls.
A teacher, she’s the first to wash out of the Circus Siren Pod auditions this grey morning.
The competition to join the Washington, Dc-based underwater performing troupe, she says, is stiffer than she expected. “A lot of these girls are already professional mermaids,” Pavlovsky observes.
Circus Siren Pod, established in 2016, bills itself as “the Mid-atlantic’s most popular water artists”.
The group is holding auditions for new members as part of the first Mermagic Con, a festival that’s attracted about 500 mermaid enthusiasts to northern Virginia for a weekend of workshops, lectures and fun, including a Merlympics. The event was organised by Circus Siren Pod and a DC mermaid group called Metro Merfolk that began about a year ago and has nearly 400 members.
Jenna Klepper, 34, and Karen Tickner, 39, drove up from Florida in a minivan stuffed to the gills with costumes and tails for Mermagic
Con and for the Circus Siren Pod auditions. Sitting poolside in a starfish bikini top, Tickner says she’s seen a marked uptick in mermaiding over the past few years, a trend that’s only going to intensify when the planned remakes of Splash and The Little Mermaid come out.
Like many of her fellow pros, Tickner offers a range of services, including event appearances and mermaid-swim classes for children and adults.
“Lately, it’s been more adults than children,” she says.
The moment grown-ups slip on one of her on-loan swimsuit-fabric tails (which you can buy online for $60 or R850) they start playing in the pool like kids, “doing somersaults and just generally showing off”, she says.
So, why bother auditioning for Circus Siren Pod when you’re already running your own mermaid businesses, I ask the fish-tailed crowd. “The tank!” several women reply. That would be a 2.7m-tall acrylic cylinder, which Circus Siren owner Morgana Alba tows to festivals, Renaissance fairs and other events.
These underwater performers are drawn to the fish tank like sharks to chum – why else would they be vying for a job that pays $100 (R1400) to $500 (R7 000) a gig, especially when you consider the required fancy silicone tail runs upward of $3 000 (R43 000)?
Another explanation is that mermaiding is a calling, more than a job.
Tickner, for instance, heard the siren’s song while on vacation in Hawaii. Her 15-year marriage had just ended, and on a whim she signed up to swim with wild dolphins in a mermaid tail. Already a free-diving instructor with a four-minute breath hold, Tickner felt more comfortable in the water in a mermaid tail than she ever had while swimming “in legs”, she says.
“I went to find myself, and I found out I’m a mermaid.”
Several other women murmur in agreement and start to tell their own stories, but they’re cut off by Alba, a stern figure in neoprene knee socks.
“It’s time to show your mermaiding skills,” she says.
Thirteen of the original 15 women progress to the second round of the auditions. Montara Haywood-hewgill, a zaftig 27-year-old mermaid, in a luminous, hand-beaded tail, looks concerned about the buoyancy test, which entails sinking on cue. “Can we wear weights?” she asks. Alba shakes her head no. “I want to see how you do on your own,” she says.
Several of the curvier mermaids exchange worried glances. While slim mermaids can sink by simply exhaling, women with “a little extra” often wear weights to achieve neutral