Text of the Crunch article:
Niabi enters the stage a tall, dark-haired 25 year-old bombshell. Long legs, black fishnet stockings, hot pants, a black corset and red high-heeled shoes. She’s the hottest knife thrower’s assistant you’ve ever seen, if you’ve ever seen one at all. She smiles for the audience at the smoky downtown NY Slipper room, the she lifts about ten 16 inch knives and hands them to her partner, the Great Throwdini. Throwdini, a handsome older man who also happens to be a minister, walks to the far end of the stage. He’s wearing a black tuxedo, a white button-down and a red cummerbund to match his assistant’s shoes. But don’t let the ministerial garb detract from the fact that this is the most dangerous knife-throwing act in the country.
Niabi blindfolds her partner then positions herself against the large wooden board. Just to be fair, she too holds a 16 inch knife, except that she uses her to guide the Great Throwdini. She holds her knife with both hands then bangs it against the side of the board, just outside the outline of her left thigh. Throwdini — still blindfolded — follows her lead. He aims the knife in the direction of the sound. She bangs another spot on the board. And then another. In seconds, knives surround her.
It all started with Girl on the Bridge, a French film with Vanessa Paradis about a knife thrower and his love affair with a target girl. Niabi decided to become a knife-thrower’s assistant immediately. “It’s this erotic, beautiful movie about their relationship,” she says. “The whole thing became a fantasy for me.”
Niabi, whose name means “young deer spared by the hunter,” found her Great Throwdini on the Internet. “I went to meet him on Long Island. We started practicing that same day.” After only eight months together, the dangerous couple has been invited to perform in Germany for a ten-day tour. They have an intense short program — 90 knives in eight minutes (their long program is 160 knives in 15) and they’re the only act to include backbends, handstands and blindfolds. “We’re taking knife throwing to a new level,” Niabi says. “We’re breaking boundaries and turning what was once a circus act into a high-end performance.”
Niabi is also a runway model, an aspiring actress and a member of an all-girl motorcycle gang. So does anything make this girl nervous? Maybe the fact that her parents have no clue she’s a knife throwers assistant. “I haven’t told them yet. Wait. When is this article coming out?”