If the thought of aluminium doesn't immediately bring to mind a high-energy dance and multimedia performing arts experience, you have probably never seen "The Aluminum Show." Once you have seen the show, however, there is a good chance that pulse will take care of itself.

The concept for an industrial metal theater experience wrapped entirely in aluminium was developed by a team that includes Israeli producer Adi Goldstein, and its driving technomusical score was jointly composed with Ivri Lider. The idea for the 90-minute shows, designed to be family-friendly and interactive, first came about when Israeli dancer and choreographer Ilan Azriel saw a piece of aluminium fall out of a box in a hardware shore. Observing the "snake-like" object, Azriel noticed the way it moved and the way light played off of it.

Now the Aluminum Show, originally performed with a 10-member cast of dancers and aluminium-clad acrobats, is back on a new North American tour. The show uses recycled industrial metal to create its set from ducts and tubes, all of its reflective costumes, the balls and props – even the pillows tossed out to the audience and batted around like beach balls, and the confetti that celebrates the end of the show.

Getting great theater reviews is unique for most recycled aluminium products, but the Aluminum Show seems to attract a few. "Unquestionably, the Aluminum Show is weird," wrote one critic, quickly adding how good that weird turned out to be – and calling out the aluminium itself as the real star of the show. Strobe lights, glitter, choreography, and even robotics complete the not-so-heavy metal performance.

The show has been described by the Cowan Center in Texas as "Stomp meets Blue Man Group," ahead of a performance at the University of Texas campus in Tyler, where the Center is located, in late October. The Center struggles to describe the show's premise as a theater night out on "a futuristic planet made entirely of aluminum." Others have said ScrapArtsMusic has more in common with the Aluminum Show.

In another attempt to describe the Aluminum Show, a theater in Missouri noted the abundance of aluminium in the world and its light weight and durability. "Yet even this most versatile of elements is put to the test by the Aluminum Show," they added. "Aluminum is puffed into pillows, shot out of cannons, sewn into costumes, wrapped around audience members and transformed into living creatures of astonishing warmth and complexity." Even the buttoned-down BBC has called it a "silver foil spectacular," although the review was for the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The Aluminum Show originated with Israelis and was first performed there, but audiences have seen the show in South America, across Europe, and more than once in the United States and Mexico. For his part, Goldstein – a musician and composer with a wide range of commercial and artistic achievements – maintains a studio in the United States, where he also tests products for Cinematique Instruments, a German firm, and a virtual instruments company, SoundIron, located in the San Francisco Bay area.

Goldstein may be the producer behind the spectacle, but because of its avant-garde style and technical demands, the Aluminum Show relies on a wide crew of theater professionals. Beyond the typical choreographer and set designer, the production requires a robotics specialist, an acrobatics trainer, a special screens director – and two costume designers who obviously just don't have normal occupations.

How much recycled aluminium do they actually use in this show? They don't say. The best estimate is "all of it." Going to see a show unlike anything else you have seen may be the best way to answer that question.