TORONTO -- Amidst the din of rolling tanks and suicide bombers, it may be tough to believe that elsewhere in Israel, there are those devoted to making a joyful noise.

They are the artists of Mayumana, an Israeli-based performance troupe currently strutting its stuff at the Elgin Theatre.

A derivative of the Hebrew word 'meyumanut' or 'skill,' Mayumana is the brainchild of Eylon Nuphar and Boaz Berman, who serve as artistic directors for the company.

Reviewed here in its Monday night preview performance, this is a difficult show to define -- think Stomp, leavened by a bit of The Three Stooges, with just a hint of Broadway choreography and a hookah or two thrown in for good measure.

The starting point is rhythm -- the same kind of pulsating street beat that made Stomp an overnight sensation and spawned a passel of knock-offs like Tap Dogs.

On garbage cans, oil drums, tin jerry cans, street barricades, pipes of all lengths and sizes and even their own bodies, the streetwise Mayumana troupe -- Alon Neuman, Ido Kagan, Una, Shirley Golob, Arik De Mayo, Sergio Braams, Natalie Pik, Michal Cappelluto, Ido Shtadler, Reut Rotem, Hila Yaffe, Yael Mahler and Sharon Fitoussi -- can find a primal beat in just about everything. And once they start to riff on it, it's amazingly contemporary.

When it's combined with fancy footwork, again with a streetwise, contemporary edge, and the lighting of Nuphar with Eyal Tavori, it can be powerfully compelling.

Presumably in a strong desire to avoid being labelled just another Stomp or Tap Dogs wannabe, however, Mayumana's creators have tried to add a few comedic things to the mix.

And while there is a certain humour in the relentless mugging of the male portion of the troupe, it somehow softens the focus of the show without adding one whit to its impact.

Cute? Sure, but it's also self-indulgent and smacks more than a little of sexism when one considers that the troupe's distaff is limited, in the main, to an ethic of serious sexiness.

Worse, the relentless tomfoolery interferes with the flow of the show, throwing up countless roadblocks in the attempt to build to a theatrical climax.

In the end, the best efforts of Nuphar Berman et al notwithstanding, comparisons to Stomp and Tap Dogs are inevitable, for all that they've added elements like swimmer fins, the aforementioned hookahs and a few other gimmicks all their own.

Mayumana, like Tap Dogs, is built on the same human rhythms as Stomp -- and until someone takes things to another level, shows like this will just be knock-offs.

Pretty good knock-offs, mind you, but knock-offs nonetheless. (More: Theatre Reviews).

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