Toting a fork around town, and then proceeding to brush your hair with it, is likely to be perceived as strange any other time of the year. Today through Sunday, however, raiding the kitchen drawers for a “dinglehopper” as though you were Ariel from The Little Mermaid, is all the rage.
The St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station is hosting the swimmingly popular traveling exhibit Mermaids on the Mississippi for the first time this week. This Texas-based company, hired by the Aquarium, has sent two professional divers who bear the title of “mermaid” to St. Louis. The entertainers will take turns wielding their tails and blowing bubble kisses through the glass of the Clock Habitat and Shark Canyon.
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As it visits historic Union Station, fueled by the long-lasting love for and lore of merpeople, this enchanting exhibit aims to offer a refreshing change of pace. “We’ve been open five years,” says executive director Tami Brown, who believes it is “time to try something new.” The team has been hard at work for about a month and a half preparing.
The choice to introduce St. Louis to this exhibition is one that just made sense given the aquarium venue. Brown recognizes that there are “mermaid fans of all ages” here, providing the company the opportunity to “bring in a new audience.” Viewing these shimmery swimmers, Brown adds, is both awe-inspiring and ecologically relevant due to the science guests absorb when they visit.
By attracting new crowds to the aquarium via the mermaids, visitors are subject to behold all other marine life on display. Nancy Milton, partner at Insight PR, explains this an osmosis of sorts. “Even in the Midwest, you can teach [kids] to be good stewards of water,” she says. Just being in the presence of the biodiverse habitats inspires wonder, and in turn, hopefully sparks a feeling of civic duty, she adds.
Missourians are just as responsible for waterways as any coastal inhabitant, as the Mississippi Watershed empties directly into the Gulf of Mexico. Brown identifies eliminating single-use plastics as the “little behavior change” that can go a long way towards environmental stewardship.
Upon encountering these magical mermaids, the team hopes fans old and young can take with them a deeper sense of appreciation for our waterways. That sense of admiration was certainly alive in Oliva McCracken’s eyes as she and her family stumbled upon the mermaids by accident the afternoon of her 3rd birthday. It is memories like these for Olivia and little brother Patrick McCracken, that the museum is determined to facilitate.
As for America’s 249th birthday this upcoming weekend, the “word on the water” is that the Webster Groves Community Days 4th of July Parade may feature a St. Louis Aquarium float with the mermaids aboard. It’s a shiny, colorful performance that Brown says ideally embodies the hope that America will still be celebrating on the banks of thriving rivers and oceans in another 249 years.
