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But in this instance, the siren is quite real.
Carol Catan has earned her living portraying a mermaid and
teaching mermaiding since 2012, when she left her job of 10
years as a veterinarian. She is paid for performing at events
such as children's parties but donates her time at hospitals.
Positioned in a wheelchair so that wheelchair-bound children can
relate to her, Catan says volunteering at hospitals is among her
most rewarding experiences.
Dressed in costume with a long, shiny green tail, she chats with
young patients and "they feel included, cherished."
"It is a very beautiful and gratifying thing."
Catan says demand for her services, which declined in the midst
of Brazil's worst recession in more than 100 years, recovered
because of a soap opera called "A Forca do Querer," in which a
woman deceives her family so she can work as a mermaid at an
aquarium.
Like the fictional character, Catan is hired by aquariums in
summertime, but much of her work entails classes and parties.
She does her mermaid routine in a pool whenever one is available
at an event. Otherwise, the "mermaid" assumes her throne in an
armchair.
Catan says she has been fond of mermaids since childhood, when
she practiced swimming with her legs joined. Inspiration came
from the 1984 movie "Splash," starring Daryl Hannah as a mermaid
with flowing blond hair and a long red tail.
"It was not the long hair ... it was really that huge tail that
she had," says Catan. "I thought it was incredible."
Catan practices every day and can spend up to four minutes
underwater between breaths when she is in peak condition.
One might think that teaching mermaiding and earning a living
posing as one is exceptionally rare, but Catan is not the only
mermaid in town.
Thais Picchi, a former ballet dancer turned civic rights trainer
in the capital Brasilia, dove into mermaiding after a personal
crisis four years ago prompted her to find ways to reduce
stress.
She got into diving, sought lessons in underwater dancing and
then discovered the mermaid movement. Picchi took a month-long
course last year in the Philippines to learn free diving and
mermaid skills.
Picchi now teaches classes around Brazil.
"I fell in love with it," Picchi says, noting that many of her
clients associate mermaids with beauty, sensuality, freedom and
motherhood.
"When they dress up as mermaids," she says, " ... the session
changes because they identify with those values."
Women in Brazil are not unique in their affinity for mermaiding.
Classes are held as far away as Texas and some folks wonder if
mermaiding will be the next fitness craze.
Only tails will tell.
(Click on http://reut.rs/2vHOvoN for related photo essay)
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Pilar Olivares; Editing by
Lisa Von Ahn, Toni Reinhold)
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