Dancers in "The Aluminum Show" perform Sunday at DeVos Performance Hall. Click here to see more photos or scroll down for our photo gallery.GRAND RAPIDS — Unquestionably, “The Aluminum Show” is weird. However, as a crowd of about 1,000 discovered Sunday at DeVos Performance Hall, in this case, weird was good.
The star of the show: aluminum ducts of all shapes and sizes, shape-shifting into worms, lips, pipes and, in one highly unusual mating ritual — lovers. (Still, the show was strictly PG and great for kids.)
Aluminum tubes in love? Yes, and they even had a baby to prove it. The little Slinky, a cute, winsome scrap off the old block, played a pivotal role in the snappy, sparkly show.
His “parents,” dancers in huge tubes, wordlessly portrayed emotions such as fear when they lose their baby, sadness and then joy when they find him at the end of the show.
Talk about turning garbage into gold (the show uses mostly repurposed industrial scraps).
Eight fantastic dancers shake it on their own and within the tubes. At one point, four tubes hang from the ceiling, and performers seemed to swim down to the ground, as if the tubes were watery tunnels.
Another segment had these life-size Slinky creatures, with arms that bounced from shoulder to floor, gyrating to thumping electronic music. As long as the music was pulsating and danceable, it was an asset to the show. But when it got all spacey, a little went a long way.
At times, it felt as if the entire audience had been beamed up to some tin foil king’s spaceship for a private party. Huge pillows of aluminum were lobbed by the dozens into the crowd like squashy, metallic, beach balls. Crowd members played happily, batting the pillows into nearby rows.
3.5 stars out of 4
THE ALUMINUM SHOW
Where: DeVos Performance Hall
Highlight: When the audience happily batted huge aluminum pillows around the auditorium.
Low Point: A little Electronic music goes a long way.
Time on stage: 80-90 minutes, no intermission.
Several segments later, a tangle of large tubes snaked over our heads; a few even made it to the balcony. Later still, scraps of foil exploded from cannons and floated down as audience members tried to catch them.
Hypnotic Middle Eastern music (the show was created in Israel by former dancer and choreographer Ilan Azriel) added to the spellbinding effect of tubes writhing all over each other on the stage.
Kids loved it, including, hopefully, a young audience member, a boy of about 9, who was brought up on stage, covered in foil, and eaten by a huge tube. He appeared, unscathed, about 20 minutes later.
The chief appeal of this wildly original show was the display of creativity. Aluminum tubes and foil morphed into floating balls, streamers and dazzling costumes of all kinds.
One performer sported a crown of silvery dreadlocks, while another segment had dancers doing Double Dutch with giant foil jump ropes.
My son, Ezra, 10, and I managed to grab a few pieces of foil drifting from the ceiling. Somehow, these scraps seemed imbued with magical properties. Yet, if the show taught us anything, it was that creativity can make the most mundane object shimmer with life and possibility.
As “The Aluminum Show” proved, one person’s trash truly is another’s treasure.
E-mail: yourlife@grpress.com