Grace Page
| Grace Page | |
|---|---|
| File:Grace Page Headshot.pngGrace_Page_Headshot.png | |
| Born | Reading, Berkshire, England |
| 🏡 Residence | Reading, Berkshire |
| Other names | Mermaid Grace |
| 💼 Occupation |
|
| 🏢 Organization | Hire A Mermaid UK |
| 🌐 Website | www.gracelpage.com |
Grace Page (born 13 November 1991), also known as 'Mermaid Grace',[1] is a professional singer, model, actress, and mermaid performer.[2] She is a central figure in the UK mermaiding community and is quickly becoming a popular choice of model for underwater photographers[3] due to her skills as a qualified freediver. She is also the founder of the UK's biggest professional mermaid agency Hire A Mermaid UK.
Early life
Grace Page was born in Berkshire, England in 1991. She had always aspired to be a singer and was especially inspired by Disney films. She took particular influence from The Little Mermaid and began dressing up as a mermaid from the age of 5.[4]
Career
Music
Grace started singing at a very young age and often won talent shows and awards for her confident vocals. At 19 years old, she landed the part of 'Dead Mam' in a local performance of Billie Elliot due to her acting performance and vocal ability. The theatre company Golden Ratio[5] were so happy with the whole show that they entered into a national competition. They won their regional and then the grand final, so they got to perform scenes of their rendition of Billie Elliot on The Victoria stage in The West End.
Grace continued performing solo gigs until she joined the Ska cover band The Skarlets in January 2013.[6] They had a successful UK tour covering many venues and large festivals including the Hastings Beer and Music Festival and the Newbury Real Ale Festival. The Skarlets then disbanded for a brief period after their final show at the Newbury Real Ale Festival in September 2013. They have since re-launched with a new line-up.
Grace then took a break from music to follow her other dream: to become a professional mermaid (see below). She has recently started singing live again, taking on a few local gigs[7] and has even been recruited by Hot Spot Productions to play Marilyn Monroe in their new regular show 'The Vegas Kings'.
Mermaiding
According to an interview with Jack FM Berkshire, Grace began researching a career as a professional mermaid at the age of 18, but due to limited funds, she wasn't able to pursue this career until she was given a loan by the Start Up Loans company, now known as Newable in 2014. She then fully launched the company in 2015 after training to be a qualified Freediver with FreediveUK. She is an AIDA certified level 2 Open Water Freediver as well as an Open Water Mermaid Specialist. Grace has a static breath hold of 3 minutes as well as the ability to swim to a depth of 52 feet; she can also swim the length of 60 meters without coming up for air.
Grace, AKA Mermaid Grace, is now one of the most recognizable faces in the UK mermaiding community; she has appeared in local, national, and international[8] press including The Reading Chronicle[9], The Daily Mirror[10], Yahoo News, Take A Break Magazine issue 46[11] and many more. In 2016, Grace's mermaid career skyrocketed even further when she was featured in BBC's The Apprentice Series 12 Episode 8[12] as herself for the event task for the Titans team; the team won the task with 100% customer satisfaction. Grace didn't swim in the episode, which caused a lot of confusion and controversy online; she did sing, however. The backlash threatened her credibility as a professional mermaid until the BBC invited her back onto an episode of The Apprentice: You're Fired![13] and she explained on air that there wasn't enough time to perform the tests needed in order to safely execute an aquarium show, which solidified her career once again.
Grace won the national pageant competition Miss Mermaid UK in September 2016, immediately after winning her Miss Talent title in Miss Great Britain (See pageant section below). This title took her to the final of Miss Mermaid International in Egypt, where she repeatedly scored highly against other professional mermaids from around the world.
Grace's reputation as a professional mermaid continued to spread across the globe when Pretty 52, a media company under The Lad Bible Group, shared a video of Grace swimming as a mermaid[14] to promote Grace's Mermaid Camp. The video reached 8 million views, 3,000 shares, and 5,000 comments in less than 24 hours. Grace has shared other photos and videos with her Snapchat[15] followers that show she has been involved in multiple other filming days for programs and videos yet to be released.
Mermaid Camp
Grace has launched the UK's first Mermaid Camp, where aspiring mermaids can learn the complicated business of being a professional mermaid as well as how to pose successfully underwater, how to work with waterproof makeup, what insurances are needed, and perhaps most significantly, successful students will earn a freediving qualification.[16]
Modelling
Grace has been modelling since the age of 17 when she was spotted by the Mapis Modelling Academy (no longer in business) during the Miss Berkshire competition in 2008 (see pageantry below); she only did a couple of jobs for the agency before leaving due to complications at home. She then began working as a freelance model at the age of 19 and has now been featured in multiple publications and campaigns, including landing her first magazine cover in February 2017.[17] Grace has various online portfolios showcasing her work including her website, Starnow[18], Purpleport[19], Facebook[20], and others, which is how it is assumed she generates work without an agent.
Pageantry
Grace has repeatedly described herself as "not a pageant girl" in various interviews, yet she has competed 5 times in 3 different pageants. Her first was Miss Berkshire 2008; she then entered the same pageant again in 2012, where she walked away with the lesser titles of 'Miss Popularity' and 'Miss Charity'.[21] She then entered Miss Berkshire twice more: 2014 and 2015, and both times she walked away without a title. A close friend and previous Miss Essex winner, Devon Mayson,[22] entered Grace into Miss Reading 2016 (a semi-final for Miss Great Britain), where she actually went on to win the title.[23] Grace was sponsored by Gentings Casino Reading in the National Miss Great Britain final, and she walked away with the title of Miss Talent Great Britain thanks to her underwater reenactment of the Part Of Your World scene from Disney's The Little Mermaid.[24] This victory then inspired her to enter Miss Mermaid UK, where she won the title. This then gave her a place at the 2016 Miss Mermaid International in Egypt, where Grace repeatedly scored highly against other professional mermaids from around the world and finished in the top 5.
The success at the international final then added a new element to Grace's career as she is now the national director for Miss Mermaid UK; "The judges were so impressed with Grace's aquatic aptitude and the success of her company 'Hire a Mermaid UK', they asked her to run the national competition." - Milo Boyd, Get Reading[25] Amongst her other work, she will now be in charge of finding a suitable candidate to represent the UK in Miss Mermaid International 2017.
- ↑ http://www.hireamermaid.co.uk/grace
- ↑ http://www.gracelpage.com
- ↑ http://pauldalephotography.com/want-mermaid-day/
- ↑ http://www.hireamermaid.co.uk/about
- ↑ "Billy Elliot the Forum - The new forum for fans of Billy Elliot the Musical • View topic - Billy Youth Theatre 2011". www.billyelliottheforum.me.uk. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "The Skarlets". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Hire A Mermaid UK | Mermaid Entertainers for Parties and Events!". Hire A Mermaid UK | Mermaid Entertainers for Parties and Events!. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Cookies op AD.nl | AD.nl". www.ad.nl (in Nederlands). Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "'Mermaid' sets sights on crown". Reading Chronicle. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ Gilmour, Paisley (2015-07-11). "Watch the real life Little Mermaid in action with her custom-made tail". mirror. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Instagram post by 🌹 Grace Page 🌹 • Nov 10, 2016 at 7:49pm UTC". Instagram. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ ""It's a mermaid!", London Landmarks, Series 12, The Apprentice - BBC One". BBC. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Apprentice: You're Fired just brought back THAT mermaid". Digital Spy. 2016-12-15. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Search". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Add me on Snapchat!". Add me on Snapchat. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Hire A Mermaid UK | Mermaid Entertainers for Parties and Events!". Hire A Mermaid UK | Mermaid Entertainers for Parties and Events!. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ Ltd, Stuart Weatherley, KD Media Publishing. "County Wedding Magazines: Previous issues of". www.county.wedding. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Grace Page is an Actor, Model and Musician based in Reading, United Kingdom". StarNow. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Grace L Page, a Reading RG10, UK based 5'8" 25yr old Female model. / Portfolio hosting and networking for models, photographers and related creatives / PurplePort". purpleport.com. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Grace". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ getreading (2012-04-01). "Kirsty Beer crowned Miss Berkshire". getreading. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ "Multilinguist Devon Mayson in the running for Miss Great Britain title". Essex Live. 2014-10-25. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ Naylor, Mary (2016-06-08). "Miss Great Britain 2016 could be Woodley's professional mermaid". getreading. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
- ↑ Hire A Mermaid UK (2016-11-07), Part Of Your World Cover (Better Sound), retrieved 2017-04-25
- ↑ "Call goes out for Berkshire mermaids". Reading Chronicle. Retrieved 2017-04-25.
References
This article "Grace Page" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Grace Page. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
