In the year 2012, Team iLuminate dazzled judges and audience members of “America’s Got Talent” with their glow in the dark dancing which combined popular pop hits with unique wireless lighting suits (Sharon Osbourne called them “groundbreaking”). During the show’s sixth season Team iLuminate ended in third place behind a group of shadow dancers and a jazz crooner from West Virginia, but lo and behold as only two years later, the light-dance phenomenon from Los Angeles are headlining their own show at New World Stages in an extravaganza previously titled “Artist of Light”.

As the lights go out and you find yourself sitting in the darkness surrounded by strangers, there is a feeling of queasiness the likes of which you might’ve had as a child fearing the monsters under your bed. This feeling is instantly dispelled the second we see Jacob, a being made out of neon lights who enters his house and begins to paint with his magical brush. The bright lines of his pictures turn into living creatures that burst out of the canvas and blend themselves into the larger canvas of the stage, cleverly used by the director and choreographer as an endless space, given that at many points during the show, these beings of light step down from the stage and walk along the aisles, creating a feeling of complete unity between audience members and performers.

Perhaps the easiest way to describe what happens onstage would be to say that it’s like watching a live version of “TRON”, if the video game characters were more about the dancing and less about the battles, but to reduce this show to such a simple description would be unfair, given that it is filled with a joyous energy that will make even the grumpiest person tap their feet along with their tunes. Watching neon lights constantly create new elements right in front of our eyes has a primitive quality the likes of seeing the work of early photographers or filmmakers, whose clunky editing and endlessly laborious processing lost any traces of humanity to instead evoke absolute magic.

“iLuminate” is able to conjure a feeling of how-did-they-do-that, rarely experienced in this day and age when we are used to knowing exactly how everything works. With its simple but positive message (“shine so bright so the world can see who you are”) and its lively execution, this is a show that will send everyone on their way back home with a huge smile.