"Stomp" opens with a single performer pushing a stiff-bristled broom across the Ordway Center stage. The broom hops along like a brush on a snare drum and soon another performer joins in — and then another and another until eight people are scratching and rapping out a complex beat.

By the end of the 90-minute show, these percussionists/dancers will find the rhythm in garbage cans, matchbooks, Zippo lighters, giant innertubes, plastic tubes, crumpled newspapers, basketballs — everything including the kitchen sink.

It is now 30 years since Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas created a short prototype that depended on the natural storytelling inherent in rhythmic percussion. Dozens of productions have toured the world. A lively assortment of performers are in the show that opened at the Ordway on Tuesday night and they are well schooled in the show's ethos. Don't confuse this with "Riverdance," the stomping Irish dance show that is also something of an international phenomenon.

"Stomp" is predicated on the idea that most of the audience members have a heartbeat. For those who don't, stay away because the show is a visceral kick, with some droll pantomime (a paradox given all the clatter) that depends on winning personalities. The performers are listed in the program but without photos, so I dare not hazard crediting the rotating personnel who slam lids, scale a wall and bang on the junk, and tap their way through this sweaty endeavor.

This could be a one-note affair if not for the constant sense of invention in finding sound in so many objects and in the percussive elements of the human body. Amplified at a perfect pitch, all the taps and dings come through. McNicholas and Neil Tiplady designed a lighting scheme that also modulates the action.

All that said, there are instances when some of the quieter moments don't find traction. A bit with newspapers and another with three performers finding sound in the contents of a trash bag can't compete with the virtuosity of high-flying paint cans and the very cool light and sound show produced with the Zippos. The latter is the best example of real art in this piece of entertainment.

"Stomp" doesn't end too soon. The majority of Tuesday night's crowd stuck around for a short encore. It was fine but felt kind of like deciding after listening to "In a Gadda da Vida" that "I just didn't get enough organ solo."

But what's one more dance in the greater scheme of things, right?

Graydon Royce is a longtime Star Tribune theater critic. He can be reached at roycegraydon@gmail.com.