Rachel Smith, the head mermaid at the Dive Bar on K Street in downtown Sacramento, prepares to enter the aquarium for a performance. In addition to shifts at the bar, the 12 mermaids on staff make appearances at private events, corporate events, cocktail parties, kids parties, parades and festivals.
The mermaids, Smith says, love their job. “The turnover rate is like non-existent,” she says. “People only leave if they move or get pregnant and decide to raise their family instead.”
Recently, a rare mermaid position became available — the selection process involved an interview and multiple auditions over the course of several weeks. Smith says she can usually tell almost immediately if someone is cut out to be a mermaid. The job may be “perceived as glamorous,” she says, but requires dedication, athleticism and continual training.
Rachel Smith swims through the 7,500-gallon aquarium at the Dive Bar in downtown Sacramento. Smith, 27, grew up in Hawaii as a “water baby,” as she describes herself, with parents who performed Polynesian dance. As a teenager who loved to perform, she asked her mother (a seamstress) to make a mermaid tail in which she could swim.
While at the California College of the Arts studying illustration, she learned of a mermaid bar opening on K Street. “I was able to apply with a mermaid résumé because I had photos and videos of me swimming and doing mermaid things,” says Smith, who did her first show in January 2011; she’s now head mermaid, overseeing nine other mermaids and the three mermen who perform in choreographed swims at the bar on Friday and Saturday evenings.
“It’s a whole new state of being and it’s incredibly freeing and it’s incredibly empowering, which is lovely,” she says. Smith also describes the performance as a great core workout: “I definitely don’t have a six pack, but I have a two pack.”