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| What’s That Sound? Nature? No, It’s This Guy’s Voice | What’s That Sound? Nature? No, It’s This Guy’s Voice |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| BERLIN — Long before he became a global web fascination for using his mouth and his nose and — he swears — his soul to make nature sounds spring from a microphone like a geyser from the ground, Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh was a show-business chameleon. | BERLIN — Long before he became a global web fascination for using his mouth and his nose and — he swears — his soul to make nature sounds spring from a microphone like a geyser from the ground, Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh was a show-business chameleon. |
| There is little, it seems, which the Russian-born Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh has not tried. His journeyman career, including stints as a singer, comedian and mime, has ranged from the swarthy (his turn as Django, the drifter Gypsy hit man on a Russian mafia show) to the absurdly sublime (he is close friends with, and has worked alongside, Slava Polunin, the Russian clown). What else? He has made a one-man show about robots. He has played a pirate. Despite all this versatility, however, widespread renown did not arrive for Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh, 52, until March. | |
| That was when, while sitting at a cafe here checking his smartphone, he saw that Miss Arab U.S.A. — who is a 22-year-old Brooklyn-born Syrian named Fabiola al-Ibrahim — had, for some reason, posted to her Facebook page a video of Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh competing on a talent show in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. “This will take you to another world!” she promised of the link, which leads to about three minutes of Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh vocalizing the sounds of crickets, bird wings rustling, water dripping and hyper-dramatized operatic chanting. | |
| The show, “Georgia’s Got Talent,” is about what you might expect from spectacles like this anywhere: There are singers and dancers and the occasional seminude couple roller-skating dangerously atop a coffee table. (Yes, they are worth a look.) Yet Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh’s performance, which he began by solemnly intoning, “Let us try to feel what the Mother Earth wants to tell us,” resonated more deeply. | The show, “Georgia’s Got Talent,” is about what you might expect from spectacles like this anywhere: There are singers and dancers and the occasional seminude couple roller-skating dangerously atop a coffee table. (Yes, they are worth a look.) Yet Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh’s performance, which he began by solemnly intoning, “Let us try to feel what the Mother Earth wants to tell us,” resonated more deeply. |
| “I was just astonished that one man had the power and talent to produce such sounds,” Ms. al-Ibrahim said in an email. “It reminded me that we as humans are capable of so much, which we tend to forget. Gennady was a good reminder of that.” | “I was just astonished that one man had the power and talent to produce such sounds,” Ms. al-Ibrahim said in an email. “It reminded me that we as humans are capable of so much, which we tend to forget. Gennady was a good reminder of that.” |
| The video on Miss Arab U.S.A.’s page has logged more than 70 million views and inspired more than 102,000 comments — a collection of mostly unbridled encomiums, with viewers gushing about the performance’s “spiritual cosmic harmony,” its “primordial eloquence” and its channeling of “a world where suffering has finished.” There are also a few who question whether Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh is, perhaps, an alien being used “as a vessel to deliver a message.” | |
| One of the judges on the show, a Georgian actress named Ruska Makashvili who appeared to find the performance almost erotic, said she understood the universal appeal of Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh because he has “an amazing voice” and was “being real.” | One of the judges on the show, a Georgian actress named Ruska Makashvili who appeared to find the performance almost erotic, said she understood the universal appeal of Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh because he has “an amazing voice” and was “being real.” |
| Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh, for his part, allows that “angels speak to me” while he is performing. Still, he is very much human, he said, and is thus dealing with the aftereffects of becoming an overnight web sensation. A crush of overtures from fans, business executives, agents and would-be collaborators has flooded his email inbox and Facebook account, leaving him to try to sort out how to best capitalize on his new visibility. | |
| He said that he hoped to travel to London soon to record an album and had been negotiating with a producer regarding a possible project. | He said that he hoped to travel to London soon to record an album and had been negotiating with a producer regarding a possible project. |
| In Germany, he has begun working with Steve Last, he said, who is the nephew of James Last, a big-band legend. | In Germany, he has begun working with Steve Last, he said, who is the nephew of James Last, a big-band legend. |
| “About 90 percent want me in electronica,” Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh said over lunch at a restaurant here recently. He frowned. “This kind of music doesn’t interest me,” he added, before noting, somewhat vaguely, that “an Asian princess has asked me about performing for her charity, and she is talking with my wife about it.” | |
| Such a change, however, should not be seen as the act of a developing prima donna. Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh, who arrived to two recent meetings on his bicycle and favors casual cotton shirts topped with a patchy vest, said he was not especially interested in being wealthy. He lives here with his wife, Larissa, who is a financial auditor, and their two young children (he also has an older son from a previous relationship), and he said that he is most interested in simply harnessing “this gift I have, which has a magical effect.” | Such a change, however, should not be seen as the act of a developing prima donna. Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh, who arrived to two recent meetings on his bicycle and favors casual cotton shirts topped with a patchy vest, said he was not especially interested in being wealthy. He lives here with his wife, Larissa, who is a financial auditor, and their two young children (he also has an older son from a previous relationship), and he said that he is most interested in simply harnessing “this gift I have, which has a magical effect.” |
| It has taken some adjustment for his wife. “I think he really likes testing, trying things,” she said. “It can be a little strange — sometimes I am in the house and I will just hear sounds, like a bird flying, but it is inside. But that is who he is.” | |
| Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh first dabbled with imitating sounds as a young boy, he said, initially approximating musical instruments like a guitar or a ukulele. His mother taught him how to use his nose to augment his noises, and years later he found himself surrounded by a crowd after he broke into an impromptu performance near a campfire at a yoga retreat. | Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh first dabbled with imitating sounds as a young boy, he said, initially approximating musical instruments like a guitar or a ukulele. His mother taught him how to use his nose to augment his noises, and years later he found himself surrounded by a crowd after he broke into an impromptu performance near a campfire at a yoga retreat. |
| “A lot of people say they don’t need a drug anymore, that this is an alternative,” he said. “My sounds get them to a state where they are much more under the influence than drugs. I don’t know if it is true, but they tell me this.” | “A lot of people say they don’t need a drug anymore, that this is an alternative,” he said. “My sounds get them to a state where they are much more under the influence than drugs. I don’t know if it is true, but they tell me this.” |
| Regardless, the nature sounds were not a key part of his repertory in his earlier days, as he studied the circus arts, drama and the bel canto opera method in Russia before bouncing among various shows and theaters, including a long stint at the Theater Buff in St. Petersburg. | Regardless, the nature sounds were not a key part of his repertory in his earlier days, as he studied the circus arts, drama and the bel canto opera method in Russia before bouncing among various shows and theaters, including a long stint at the Theater Buff in St. Petersburg. |
| Now, however, he is focusing on his sounds. His 8-year-old son, Tim Antony, tries to create sounds of his own, too, and the pair recently found a practice room with excellent acoustics near the swimming pool of their hotel while on vacation in the Czech Republic. | Now, however, he is focusing on his sounds. His 8-year-old son, Tim Antony, tries to create sounds of his own, too, and the pair recently found a practice room with excellent acoustics near the swimming pool of their hotel while on vacation in the Czech Republic. |
| But generally Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh finds rehearsing to be impractical, preferring to leave each performance as an organic compilation of whatever enters his mind at the moment. | But generally Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh finds rehearsing to be impractical, preferring to leave each performance as an organic compilation of whatever enters his mind at the moment. |
| “If I think too much, it feels like my wings are tied and I cannot fly,” he said. “I am not free.” | “If I think too much, it feels like my wings are tied and I cannot fly,” he said. “I am not free.” |
| Some routines do take at least basic planning — Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh occasionally integrates dancers into his shows — but the goal is not to be flawless; in “Georgia’s Got Talent,” for example, he did not win the contest nor even make the final. (A girl with a remarkable singing voice won that edition.) But, he said, he did not care. | Some routines do take at least basic planning — Mr. Tkachenko-Papizh occasionally integrates dancers into his shows — but the goal is not to be flawless; in “Georgia’s Got Talent,” for example, he did not win the contest nor even make the final. (A girl with a remarkable singing voice won that edition.) But, he said, he did not care. |
| Winning was not the purpose and never has been. | Winning was not the purpose and never has been. |
| “I am still trying to understand the power of my skill,” he said. “People have told me, ‘You should teach this, you should organize a master class even,’ but I tell them no.” | “I am still trying to understand the power of my skill,” he said. “People have told me, ‘You should teach this, you should organize a master class even,’ but I tell them no.” |
| He shrugged. “For me to teach it,” he said, “would mean that I actually know what it is that I am doing.” | He shrugged. “For me to teach it,” he said, “would mean that I actually know what it is that I am doing.” |