Those who attended last night’s concert at a full Maine Center for the Arts will never be able to tap their toes again without recalling — deep in their hearts and bones — the sounds of Ondekoza, the Demon Drummers of Japan. Performing on percussion instruments that ranged in size from a small child’s toy to a 700-pound wooden drum, the drummers of this company beat an impression into its audience.

The 11 musician-athletes, including several women, came out of a self-imposed exile on their island of Sado in Japan to run the 100th Boston Marathon earlier this week, and are now on tour with their drums and Japanese folk instruments.

Their message, they assure, is not about Japanese folk arts, though their performance draws heavily from these traditions. (Nearly every work they offered in the more than two-hour performance had roots in centuries-old practices.) They bring their amazing work to the stage so that they may learn more about creativity by sharing it with others.

For an audience, the result is an unusually pure encounter with a rare form of power that is brave rather than tyrannical. After all, what could be more awesome than a human being unleashing energy in the name of true virtue? This is a group that seeks to extol human love, and that point was never any clearer as when two nearly naked men played the 700-pound drum while a musician played “Amazing Grace” on a breathy flutelike instrument.

Whether Ondekoza members were hitting drums or trading off percussive circus tricks by clicking meat cleavers on a surface, they managed to meld their humanity with a superhumanity. They could laugh at themselves — as they did when twin brothers dueled on two shamisen (three-stringed instruments), then joined ranks to play one simultaneously before finishing their amusing competition on fiddle and banjo. Ondekoza could also take on intense seriousness with equal facility and impact — as when the concert hall crashed and boomed with a full stage of all-out drumming.

The success of this group may lie in its respect for both the ancient and the modern worlds, as well as its warmth, good humor and stunning ability. But its effect lies squarely in the heart and bones, where their beat will last long after the concert ended.