ATTENTION all Mermen – you are needed for a rum-slugging, nautical-themed singing group who are performing at the Fremantle Underwater Film Festival.
The not-for-profit community group, dubbed Mermantle Men, are looking for motley volunteers to bolster their ranks and attend weekly rehearsals ahead of their big festival gig in November.
Aside from having lots of fun belting out sea shanties and nautical songs, the casual men’s group could be good for your mental health – a chance to make friends, chat with other blokes and feel part of the community.
Mermantle Men was launched in 2020 by South Freo’s Tania Douthwaite, after her freediving business closed due to covid restrictions.
• (above) Tania Douthwaite with her Mermen buddies, and (below) Merman Luke on the South Beach pontoon.
Instead of feeling sorry for herself, she developed a freediving and yoga program to improve young men’s wellbeing, funding it through the launch of a cheeky calendar that featured topless blokes in mermaid costumes at various Freo landmarks (she even persuaded then-mayor Brad Pettitt to pose for a photo).
“I’ve always had a passion for community wellbeing and mental health, having lived experience of PTSD, losing friends to suicide, and growing up in a family where mental health was the cause of major dysfunction but was not addressed as a priority,” Douthwaite says.
“The sea and my connection to it form part of my identity and part of the Fremantle identity. It has been helpful to seek common ground, and in Fremantle that common ground is our love of the ocean and our seafaring, diving, fishing and sailing history.”
The group convene on a Monday night and warm up with breathing routines and posture control, before sharing new songs and rehearsing.
The sessions are co-ordinated by theatre actor/director and former WAAPA educator Ralf Rauker.
Aside from the social benefits of group singing, Douthwaite says the rehearsals develop conscious breathing techniques.
“As a breath expert I can see the physical health benefits of learning how to breathe well for singing and vocal projection, with regular practice increasing lung function and consciously controlled breathing improving emotional self-regulation – a flow on effect of breathing functionally and consciously on a regular basis as many breathwork practices show,” says Douthwaite, a certified freedive instructor and yoga/meditation teacher.
Sadly her father passed away from cancer in December last year.
He was an introvert who didn’t like being in crowds, but eventually came along to an event Douthwaite organised and had a ball.
“It meant a lot to me to see my dad joining in with a community activity and finding benefit,” she says.
“He suffered from depression throughout my life and seeking healthy ways to express himself or find support in a culturally appropriate framework was challenging.”
Various studies have shown that group singing is good for your mental health, according to Douthwaite, and she wants more blokes to give it a go.
“My hope is it will increase feelings of wellbeing, contribute to mental health maintenance in our community and foster strong bonds that can support the emotional and psychological needs of those who cannot or will not seek conventional methods of psychological support – whether due to financial equity issues or the associated cultural stigma still present in many male groups around visiting a counsellor or psychologist,” she says.
If you are interested in joining the Mermantle Men singing group, contact Douthwaite on 0439 770 038.
They rehearse Mondays 6pm at Blueback Studio in O’Connor and will be appearing at the grass-roots Fremantle Underwater Film Festival (Douthwaite is the creative director) from November 22-24. For more details see fuff.com.au.
by STEPHEN POLLOCK