UNDER THE SEA

“Dreams really do come true,” according to the website for Weeki Wachee Springs (a/k/a the City of Live Mermaids). At the roadside attraction an hour north of Tampa, “mermaids” (swimmers who breathe through air tubes) have been eating bananas and performing synchronized ballets underwater since 1947. And that is the inspiration for A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things, a watery extravaganza onboard a docked barge in Red Hook filled with reclaimed plastic objects. Members of Polybe + Seats generated the piece by looking to literature, oceanographic blogs, and transcripts of interviews with actual Weeki Wachee mermaids. Poor, unfortunate souls.

Fridays-Sundays, 7 p.m. Starts: April 23. Continues through May 9, 2010