Who’d have thought cleaning could be so entertaining?

“Stomp!,” a percussive movement company, proved this week that anything can be turned into a rhythm instrument. Pots, pans, lawn chairs, brooms, dustpans, newspapers, plastic bags, lighters, sinks, cups, water, spoons, sand, pails, straws and trash cans all came to life to create a beat when the show came to Stephens Auditorium on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Costumed in baggy street clothes, 12 performers entered the stage carrying wooden brooms and swept the stage in rhythmic patterns. Various tones and volume levels of the brooms’ bristles whisking across the floor, combined with the clamoring of broom handles, created the sound score for the first piece.

The two-hour performance had no intermission, but instead was a constant streaming of movement and rhythms flowing from one piece directly into the next with scarcely a definite start or stop. And yet, amazingly enough, no rhythmic pattern was ever repeated. In fact, just when you felt as though you figured out the rhythm of what was being produced onstage and could join in by clapping the beat, it was switched, and something entirely different was created.

The set had two levels and was just as eclectic as the rhythms the performers created. The most eccentric part of the set could be seen after the musicians climbed metal ladders that connected the first level of the set to the second. The upper level contained a world of what most would consider a landfill glued to a wall. Old school bells, pieces of porcelain, pots, pans, plates, pieces of lawn chairs and other tattered items became the new drumming playground.

Three performers swung back-and-forth like pendulums across Stephens Auditorium, banging in unison on the various objects tacked to the wall. What they created was a musical score that started and ended with what sounded like the hourly chiming of a clock. Sandwiched in the middle of this chiming performance was an all-out jam session on the conglomeration of items attached to the wall.

Saying the show contained everything but the kitchen sink would be wrong.

One of the pieces performed contained three musicians with metal kitchen sinks strapped around their necks like drummers in a marching band. What started off as just the beating on the outsides and insides of the sinks to create various rhythms soon turned into each performer removing a metal cup filled with water from his or her sink. Taking a metal spoon and pouring the water out of the cups and back into the individual sinks at various speeds and times formed an array of tones. Soon, each performer was trying to surpass the other, which made a hysterical moment in which one of the performers, still contributing to the musical score created, kept splashing himself in order to outdo his colleagues.

In the midst of all of the rhythm and choreography, humor was never far behind.

One of the highlights of the show was a performance in which Khalid Freeman took center stage sitting on a wooden box reading a newspaper. He appeared to be working on a crossword puzzle peacefully when the rest of the cast joined him and one by one started a rhythmic pattern of annoying noises. The musical layers consisted of a man sounding like he was going to cough up a loogie, the flamboyant turning of newspaper pages, the rowdy crumbling of pages and one performer whose newspaper seemed to be attacking him.

The simplistic yet multi-layered and innovative musical scores created from the idea of everyday materials found in trash cans or used while cleaning left spectators in absolute awe.

After the standing ovation and the reluctant departure of the audience, many left the auditorium clapping, snapping or stomping, trying to mimic the rhythms they heard on stage. You can bet those who saw the show will now be trying a little harder when they’re sweeping their floors and washing their dishes.