Show & Tell: Mariah Rivera of ‘Fantasy’
Meet Mariah Rivera
“Fantasy”
Hometown: Grand Junction, Colo.
Age: 29
Started taking dance lessons at 3 (“I was always dancing and putting on little costumes and just bouncing around the house”). … Left dancing at 12 for sports (soccer, volleyball, track, “everything I could get my hands into”) and was an all-state point guard her senior year of high school. … Dreamed of being a college athlete and a high school basketball coach until breaking her ankle senior year of high school. … Came to Las Vegas at 19 to enroll at UNLV and started auditioning for shows. … Credits include “Show in the Sky,” “Erocktica,” Steve Wyrick’s magic show and “Sin City Kitties.” … Also has toured China with a magic show. … Has been with “Fantasy” for almost five years.
On the connection between sports and dance:
“For me, (dance) is athletic. A lot of Las Vegas dancers are very properly trained ballerinas. They’ll say the words ‘grand plie’ and ‘tour de jete’ and I’m just, like, ‘Could you just show me?’ and if you show me, I can mimic it. I think that’s just through sports and being athletic and trying to be a sponge and looking at everybody, trying to learn.”