The Daily Times

On paper, it sounds ridiculous �" a piece of aluminum tubing is “born,” loses his parents and embarks on an adventure to find them.

Through the help of dancers, acrobats and artists, many clad in aluminum costumes and accessories, he introduces his human friends to his world and eventually makes his way back home. To skeptics, it seems like a bad re-enactment of “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” using Reynold’s Wrap and a dryer vent tube.

That is indeed the basis for The Aluminum Show, which takes place at the Clayton Center for the Arts on Friday (Jan. 21), but before you read any further, stop. Clear your mind of those preconceptions. Stop trying to imagine what the performance will be like, because you can’t. There aren’t words, official or otherwise, that can do justice to the fantastic, surreal and enthralling world of aluminum that the production will bring to life.

“Most of the reactions we get are, ‘This is amazing,’ ‘This is beautiful,’ ‘This is fun,’ ‘This is the one of the best shows we’ve ever seen,’” David Azulay, executive producer and CEO of the show, told The Daily Times this week. “We’ve had audience members who have seen Broadway shows that tell us we’re up there with the best Broadway has to offer. And I think what intrigues them the most are the people.

“They don’t think about it being a show done with aluminum tubes, because people connect with the characters. You take a cold piece of metal, put a dancer in it and the way the dancer manipulates it, you humanize it. Audience members follow the characters throughout the shows, and they identify with them. Overall, we’re very thrilled with the audience response.”

Marketing the performance has been a challenge for Clayton Center employees, because words can’t do justice to what will unfold on stage. Like “Stomp,” Cirque de Soleil and The Blue Man Group, The Aluminum Show is a performance combining movement, dance and visual theater. Through the use of special effects, creative mechanisms and acrobatic dance, inanimate objects are brought to life, with the ever-present aluminum creating a world that draws in the audience and makes the members a part of the show.

(It’s fitting as well that the show is sponsored by the Aluminum Company of America, the company that shares its initials with the Blount County municipality of Alcoa and has been the dominating industrial presence in Blount and surrounding counties since 1912.)

The show was created by Israeli dancer Ilan Azriel, who created a one-man show using human-sized puppets that he operated by hand. A critically acclaimed performance, its popularity took Azriel to Las Vegas, where he happened to take in performances by Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil. He returned to Israel inspired, Azulay said.

“He wanted to do something big �" not necessarily to copy those groups but to do a spectacle, something for people to say wow, and so he started looking for materials,” Azulay said. “In his search, he went into a hardware store, and a small aluminum tube fell from the top shelf to his feet. He held it, put his hand in it and started manipulating his hand, and he liked the way it looked. He liked the personality of it, so he started thinking, ‘If I can build this with my hand, what will I happen if I put a dancer in it?”

He collaborated with various artists and special effects gurus in Israel, including Yuval Kedem, one country’s leading special effects and accessories experts. Then came the need for performers of all types, and two years after its conception, The Aluminum Show debuted at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem in 2003.

The response was ecstatic, and the show has picked up steam ever since. International shows in Europe, South America and Mexico eventually led to a two-month run at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, followed by a three-month tour of the United States in 2010. Saturday’s performance comes as part of a five-month American tour, and every time the show takes a break, Azulay said, organizers are fine-tuning, upgrading and looking for ways to raise the bar on what’s possible in a marriage between art and aluminum.

That’s where the story of the aluminum tube comes in. It’s a means of “connecting the dots,” Azulay said; giving the audience members a logical path to follow as characters are introduced and new spectacles are unveiled. Once the story was developed, auditions were held in New York for American dancers, 10 of whom were flown to Israel and put through an “aluminum boot camp,” he added.

“They had to learn how to work with the material and manipulate it and work with the choreography,” Azulay said. “The results are unbelievable.”

Azulay speaks from experience �" he saw the performance for the first time in January 2010, when the troupe was seeking an Israeli with experience in America to produce that three-month tour. The first time he saw it, he said, he fell in love with The Aluminum Show �" and he’s confident that anyone else who sees it will feel the same emotion.

“It was something I’d never seen before, and the uniqueness of it is what captured me,” he said. “Sometimes you go see a show and you think, ‘Ah, I’ve seen this before.’ And what’s no nice about The Aluminum Show is that the audience immediately feels connected and at ease, but they always see things they never expect. And even though it’s unexpected, they immediately understand what’s going on, and they love it.”

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