Saturday, October 09, 2010

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME

FREEPORT, N.Y.—At a recent stage show in Manhattan, David Adamovich stood his assistant against a large wooden board and placed a paper screen in front of her. He then stepped seven feet back and rapidly threw 10 knives toward her unseen body. (More after the break)

Most of the knives seemed to hit wood, but the third knife registered a bone-chilling thunk and flew to the floor. One woman in the audience screamed "No!" Another shouted, "Oh my God!" Even Dr. Adamovich, whose stage name is the Great Throwdini, was slightly shaken. "I thought that thunk was her, that maybe I hit her shoulder," he said after the show. The assistant was unhurt. The sound was the blade hitting the handle of a previously thrown knife. And the assistant was standing still. Now, the Great Throwdini—a former knife-throwing world champion and current holder of 16 world records—is taking a stab at one of the most dangerous feats in knife throwing: The Veiled Wheel of Death. In this stunt, Melissa-Anne Ainley will not only be covered up, but also strapped to an upright wheel that spins. The Great Throwdini will then fling blade after blade around her unseen, rotating body. The wheel dare has been performed only a handful of times. "It is insanity," says Carl Geddes, organizer of San Diego Chuckers, one of the longest-running knife-throwing competitions in the U.S. "David takes tremendous risks...but he is probably the best knife thrower there is." Knife throwing emerged as a performance act in the late 1800s. In the 1970s, it became a backyard sport, with hobbyists tossing blades at a painted target. Nowadays, small knife-throwing competitions are held in Europe and the U.S. Yet only a few old-fashioned "impalement artists" like Dr. Adamovich are still around. They fling knives, machetes and tomahawks around a human target during live stage shows. "The safety of the target girl is my main concern," says the bespectacled Dr. Adamovich, 63 years old. "But sometimes the knife gets closer than you want." Two years ago, Dr. Adamovich threw a knife that missed the target's body but punctured her dress. Another time, he aimed for a balloon between the girl's legs and the blade grazed one limb, drawing a bit of blood. That particular stunt he abandoned. During late 1930s, a German couple known as the Gibsons introduced an even trickier version of the wheel stunt where the target assistant is hidden behind a paper screen. The act itself is baffling: As the wheel turns, how can the knife thrower at each split second know where the target's body is? In reviving the Gibsons' act, Dr. Adamovich believes that the thrower must use some kind of auditory or visual clue. Even so, he says, "the act is so damned difficult and dangerous, it's seen as the ultimate prize." Dr. Adamovich threw his first knife—into a tree—in 1996. "It felt natural and right," he says. He practiced and entered his first knife-throwing competition nine months later. He didn't win. But he got better and won other competitions, including the world championships in 1998. He remains one of the fastest knife throwers around, colleagues say. One of his achievements, according to the Guinness World Records: Most knives thrown around a human target in one minute—102. In 2002, he stopped competing and instead began a knife-throwing act at Monday Night Magic, a long-running show currently playing at Bleecker Street Theater in Manhattan. Unlike many of his targets, Dr. Adamovich doesn't like to stand still. He got a doctorate in exercise physiology in 1970, and taught the subject to graduate students for 18 years. He owns a billiard hall. He's also an ordained minister who runs a wedding business here, where he lives. He sometimes marries a couple and then entertains the guests with a demonstration of knife throwing. His wife, Barbara, has been "target girl" in knife-throwing practice. He once made her stand with her side profile facing him, then threw a knife so cleanly that it sliced through just the ash of a cigarette dangling from her lips. She wasn't fazed. "If he hit me, he'd have to pay the price," she quips. But in recreating the Wheel of Death stunt, Dr. Adamovich is being cautious. For starters, he is practicing with a fiberglass mannequin.
The white figure is strapped to a large wooden wheel erected in his backyard. On a recent afternoon, Dr. Adamovich covered the entire contraption with a raised circular sheet of opaque butcher's block paper. He then gave the wheel a spin. Stepping back, he threw ten 14-inch knives at high speed. Nine penetrated the paper and stuck. One bounced off and pierced the deck. By the time he finished, the mannequin—ringed with knives—was untouched. The project has been fraught with mechanical challenges. Dr. Adamovich has sought advice from a physicist, an engineer and an expert in theater equipment. For example, with every spin, the wheel slows down. To make it spin more predictably, he attached two-and-a-half-pound weights to the back of the wheel, creating a flywheel effect. Dr. Adamovich plans to unveil his latest act at a show Oct. 9 at the State University of New York in Old Westbury, N.Y. Strapped to the wheel will be Ms. Ainley, 30, holder of two world records in her own right—for Hula Hoop events. To protect her head, she'll wear a fencing helmet. But she has confidence in the Great Throwdini. "I'm not scared of knife throws at all," says Ms. Ainley. "And I'm a girl who won't even go on a roller coaster." Dr. Adamovich says he has worked out a way to estimate with some accuracy where on the wheel the target's body is. But he won't elaborate. "What I do may be difficult and dangerous," he says, "but it isn't stupid."
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