By Tricia Vita

KNIFETHROWER
Target Girls

The first time world champion knifethrower David Adamovich threw knives around a human target, he had no idea what would happen. Despite the fact that he’d practiced for six months with a dressmaker’s dummy, he was more nervous than the guy who volunteered to stand against the blood-red board.

"Am I gonna freak? Is he gonna freak? Am I just gonna miss? For four years, I did nothing but aim at chunks of wood and bull’s-eyes, so this was a big issue," Adamovich says of his initiation into the "impalement arts." But after the first knife thudded into the board, it got easier and easier. And faster and faster. (Now he can throw two knives per second!) And closer and closer. "That was more of a thrill than getting my nipples pierced," his first human target quipped.

One year later, Adamovich, a 56-year-old exercise physiologist from Freeport, Long Island, has transformed himself into the Great Throwdini. After appearing here at Monday Night Magic and Burlesque on the Beach, last summer, Throwdini has been honing his act on New York’s variety stages. A tuxedoed gent with a professorial air, his specialties include flaming knives thrown blindfolded, axes hurled through a veil of paper and double-blind tomahawk throwing—all around an alluring girl. Finding a steady assistant has been the hardest part of the job.

"The problem is David always hires actresses. They’re aspiring to something else," says "Target Girl Joan," the wife of Rhode Island impalement artist Harry Munroe. "I just want to be the target girl," she says. What about Throwdini’s wife? He has been happily married for 15 years to Barbara, a fellow exercise physiologist and knifethrowing champ who has zero interest in being a target girl. But it’s hard to build the same level of trust and confidence with a stranger that you have with your spouse.

Throwdini’s website, knifethrower.com, features a photo and video gallery of his lovely former assistants—Niobi, Lady Astrid, Jenn… "Simone" a.k.a. sleight-of-hand magician Simon Lovell once subbed for Jenn. "Never again," says Lovell, who was truly terrified when Throwdini pinned his dress to the board.

"We had phenomenal chemistry," Throwdini says of his favorite target girl. Simone? No, Lady Astrid, the girlfriend of his German promoter. In August, he flew her to New York to perform the Wheel of Death with him at Monday Night Magic. Astrid describes the stunt as the most daring and dangerous in a knifethrower’s repertoire. "It takes all of your skills: for David, who has to react in a split second, and me, who is strapped on a revolving wheel, knowing that my body will be surrounded by knives while I’m rotating. It’s hard work to control your body while you are revolving at high speed."

Throwdini’s act calls to mind the French film The Girl on the Bridge in which the knifethrower Gabor molds the suicidal Adele into the perfect assistant. "Remember, it’s not the thrower that counts—it’s the target," Gabor tells her. On a recent Saturday night at the Bindlestiff’s Palace of Variety in Times Square, Throwdini’s most recent assistant, Christine Duenas, was the antithesis of the passive, masochistic Adele.

"I like trying to find humor in dark situations," says Duenas, a professional clown. "And it is a dark act—the idea of a girl placing herself on a board voluntarily. I’m sort of a daredevil. I’ll try anything once." After six plucky performances, she turned down Throwdini’s offer of a regular gig, saying the fee wasn’t sufficient to cover the enormous risk. "Fear of injury and inconsistent financial reward: such is the life of both the thrower and the assistant," muses Throwdini, who is still seeking his Adele.

Asked to describe the qualities of a first-rate target girl, Throwdini says, "It has to look like she’s flirting with me in a sensual way and at the same time defying death. I believe the audience perceives the act through the girl while she’s at the board and I’m throwing all around her. They’re mystified how she stands there."

So who’s up next? Todd Robbins of Sideshow Saturday Night has recruited Ula, the Painproof Rubber Girl. It struck me as an inspired pairing. "She’s thin, which is good. So there’s less to hit," Robbins wryly explains. "But I also think she’s not going to be thrown by anything that happens onstage. Because she’s a performer who does contortions on a bed of machetes, she’s not afraid of danger."

Says Ula, "I want people to know I am not a suicidal girl who doesn’t care about her life anymore. I embrace life." You can check out painproofrubbergirls.com for proof.

Ula gave the job offer a couple of months’ thought before deciding to go for it. "I wouldn’t have done this for anyone but Throwdini," she says. "Knowing a little bit about knives myself, I know that besides his aim being amazing, his timing is amazing. I agreed to do it because I wanted to learn new skills. He said he’d teach me to throw knives. And it kind of fits in with my machetes."

After the first rehearsal, I check in with Throwdini to see how it’s going: "Ula said, ‘I think this whole concept of you, the thrower, and me, the target, makes me too passive throughout the show. I want to come out like a really sarcastic bitch with an attitude, like, Here I am, I’m your assistant.’ So I said, I really don’t mind, I think we really need to try it, and if you think it works, and the audience responds to it, we have the makings of a routine."

Has the Great Throwdini finally met his match? See for yourself on Sat., Dec. 28, at Sideshow Saturday Night at the SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam St. (betw. 6th Ave. & Varick St.), 691-1555, or Jan. 6 at Monday Night Magic at the McGinn/Cazales Theater, 2162 B’way (76th St.), 615-6432, mondaynightmagic.com.