‘Dance’ star popping up in Cirque Dreams Illumination

For the cast of Cirque Dreams Illumination, telling a tale of city dwellers with otherworldly coordination and balance takes a lot of concentration. That’s why popper and street performer Robert Muraine has the world on a string.

“I carry notes around so I don’t forget anything,” Muraine said with a chuckle. “I have them on a leash attached to my pants.”

Muraine, a 22-year-old Los Angeles native who captured a national audience on the fourth season of “So You Think You Can Dance,” uses his detailed notes to get the timing and placement of his movements exactly right. Precision is important in the show, which comes to John Paul Jones Arena on Monday as the first event in the 2009-2010 Brown Mercedes Broadway in Charlottesville Series.

The detailed set creates a cityscape that’s populated by actors, dancers, contortionists and other performers who make city life look pretty dazzling — and not for the clumsy. Some residents leap over the buildings in their hometown, while others walk on wires or bend into shapes that require a second glance. Muraine is bending over backward not to interrupt anyone else’s carefully crafted moves.

“Everything in this show is so precise that nobody interferes with anybody,” said Muraine, who spoke during a spare moment at a tour stop in Durham, N.C. “It’s awesome for me. I add a lot of different elements to it. It kind of fits in with what I do.”

Muraine said the show takes place largely in a subway station, where “it’s beautiful the way everything comes together — just ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

Muraine’s comment is a good way to describe his own specialty. As a popper and street performer, he has honed a mesmerizing style that blends a stop-motion quality with dance moves that seem to rewrite physics rules and defy the body’s own reasonable limits on flexibility. His gestures can seem robotic one moment and liquid the next. One moment it’s his elbow behind his head; the next, it’s his knee. His face, serene throughout, warms with a broad smile when he’s done.

If you didn’t see him on “So You Think You Can Dance” holding his own in challenging contemporary and ballroom routines against dancers with a decade or more of formal training, get a look at what he can do in his audition tape at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlDAgZO2ZDM. (And while you’re there, get a load of the IKEA commercial in which he makes witty use of his bending ability to decorate a room.)

On Monday night, audience members will see Muraine in action in the Cirque cityscape, blending acting and dancing with his individual popping style.

“I’m sort of the bad guy in the whole story,” Muraine said. “I’m a breakdancer, and I get the blame for the graffiti.”

The role is an affectionate nod to the streets where Muraine learned popping as a teen and found a pastime that quickly morphed into a passion.

“I started popping when I was 15 or 16,” he said. “It was just a hobby, and I thought it was fun. My friends were doing it. We had a little crew.”

Muraine and his friends performed at high school dances and other events, drawing gasps and cheers from audiences of all kinds. Then he took it to the streets.

“I was working a regular 9-to-5, minimum-wage job, and me and my friend started trying to street perform,” Muraine said. As he amazed audiences with his moves, he began to amaze himself and his family with the money it brought. He was delighted to quit his regular job once street performing started paying the bills.

“For three years, I was living off street performing,” he said.

Trading the street for the Cirque stage brings him in front of audiences in city after city, so to keep his trademark combination of crispness and fluidity in his movements, Muraine does a lot of stretching.“I’m stretching all day, every day — night, day, all the time,” he said cheerfully.

The show is his theatrical debut, and he’s savoring every new learning experience that comes his way. Surrounded by performers from around the world, he’s embracing the sense of awe and wonder that fills his workday with a sense of play.

“There are so many different kinds of artists,” Muraine said of his Cirque friends. “I’ve already learned how to juggle, and I’m learning a lot of other languages.”

Muraine said he particularly enjoys working with Chinese contortionists in the show. He’s accustomed to performing alone, so he relishes “being with professional contortionists who’ve been doing this their whole lives.” Muraine also hopes to apply what he’s learning from his Cirque experience to hone his craft.

“I’m definitely still popping and I’d like to get that to a higher level,” he said. “So far, every night has been a standing ovation. All the hard work is paying off.”

AT A GLANCE

Cirque Dreams Illumination

7:30 p.m. Monday

John Paul Jones Arena

$57 and $37

http://www.johnpauljonesarena.com

(888) JPJ-TIXS