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Matty Nash, bandleader of the multi-sensory performance troupe The Mutaytor, says his group's trademark is its ability to turn civilians into rock stars. He's a believer in the romantic idea that the two are in fact mutually exclusive.

But based on the nature of his indefinable act, a rock star isn't just a musician. A rock star can also be a DJ, a fire performer, a hoop dancer and an aerial stuntman. The Campus Events Commission's first Bruin Plaza show of the school year will showcase this very ideal as The Mutaytor brings a 15-member performance troupe to campus today at noon.

Nash formed The Mutaytor in 1998 at - appropriately enough - the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert - an annual gathering of freaks and hippies. Initially it was nothing more than a simple drum performance, but soon enough The Mutaytor evolved into much more. Nash was inspired by how theatrical acts like Cirque de Soleil and Blue Man Group integrated visual and sound elements into a cohesive whole and quickly came up with elements to integrate into his own project. He started to look into fire performance, martial arts and aerial stunts and even found the performers willing to bring that vision to life. Performers weren't just found on stage, however.

"Our show is a very visceral experience - we force the audience to really participate," Nash said. "It's impossible to have a passive experience at a Mutaytor concert. Everyone is moving, everyone's smiling, everyone's dancing. We use anything and everything at our disposal to make that happen."

The primary tool The Mutaytor uses to invigorate the masses is also its most simple: by employing 50 green drums at every show, a primal and primitive drumbeat serves as the group's backbone. Prior to The Mutaytor's formation, Nash drummed in rock bands. A creative drought finally inspired him to strip the noise down to its most basic and, some might argue, its most pure form.

"I watched its effects on people and saw how you don't need to speak English to understand what we're doing," Nash said. "This is music for people all over the world. You don't have to know how to dance to understand what you're doing, your body will move naturally. And feeling the sonic impact and sound pressure of 50 tribal drums coming at your body, you can feel the music inside of your living body. It's beyond hearing and seeing it, you can feel the pressure."

These effects help explain why The Mutaytor doesn't just take its act to festivals like Coachella and Burning Man. The group has also performed at the Special Olympics, using its unique brand of entertainment also as a form of music therapy.

"What we've done at music therapy concerts is bring out all of our drums and put them in front of the kids," Nash said. "And then we play along, we dance along, show them how to play. And this gives them the opportunity to explore the rhythmic side, and they're able to lock in almost right away with the music that we do. To give people that who don't have exposure to musical instruments ... is amazing. There's so much talent and energy inside of these kids, it's great to serve as the ignition to unlock that."

Nash hopes to perform a little musical therapy of his own at Bruin Plaza today. Though the relatively small-scale setting isn't ideal for an all-out Mutaytor show, it doesn't seem to concern the group's leader.

"We try to really consider what the people are like at every performance, what the space is like, and try to create something that'd be really perfect for each time," Nash said. "Hence the name of our group."