Everyone at some point has spoken metaphorically about a “dream” experience – a dream job, a dream trip. For ukulele phenom Taimane Gardner, whose talent and creativity have taken her from classical covers to out-of-this-world compositions, her performance at the historic Hawaii Theatre tonight will be more than a figure of speech.

“I had a dream, and the dream was me singing at Hawaii Theatre,” said the performer, known simply as Taimane.

The vision came to her about a year ago. Six months later, Mark Tarone, producer of the Hallowballoo and Mardi Gras events in Honolulu’s Chinatown, approached her about putting on a show.

“He said, ‘Hey, do you want to do this? I was really inspired by your planetary CD release party and I think I could really help you take it to the next level, and do you want to play the Hawaii Theatre?’

“And I was like, ‘Of course, I would love to play the Hawaii Theatre!’”

The inspiration for the Hawaii Theatre show is the CD release party for Taimane’s fourth album, “We Are Made of Stars,” which featured fire dancing, taiko and aerial performances . Tarone said he was impressed that despite bad weather and a week’s delay, more than 800 people attended the CD release party. Shortly after that, he approached her about taking the stage at the Hawaii Theatre.

She’s expanding on that production for this show: “Taimane: A Musical and Theatrical Odyssey – The Elements.”

“The Elements” features music inspired by the elements of ancient philosophy — earth, water, wind, fire and ether — accompanied by a variety of dance styles, including tango, contemporary and Chinese lion dance.

“Even when I play ukulele, I love to dance, so a visual element to music, to me, is very important,” she said. “I love to perform, and I love to use all parts of my body. I’ve always been inspired by the Cirque du Soleil shows, because there’s so much going on at the same time, so I like to say this show is Cirque du Soleil, but with ukulele.”

“THE ELEMENTS” also includes a more traditional segment of her “greatest hits” — songs Taimane has been playing in performance up to now.

“For fans who are coming to see me for the first time, they can see what got me to where I am now,” she said. Works like her “Led Zeppelin meets Beethoven” medley and “Wipeout” from her stage show will have fans enjoying her fleet fingerwork; flamencolike attack; lithe, physically expressive style; and innovative arrangements.

It’s all part of the showmanship that has run in her veins since childhood. Taimane, now 27, remembers being a “ham” as a toddler, dancing ballet at age 3 and telling the other dancers what to do. Her father, a native of Samoa who taught athletics at Punahou School, gave her an ukulele at age 5 and she “played it in front of a mirror like I was a rock star until I broke a string,” prompting him to get her lessons with Roy Sakuma.

She won her first contest at age 6 and soon after started playing on the streets of Waikiki, joining in with some Waikiki beach boys. The experience provided further education in performance and learning how to appeal to an audience.

“Playing on the streets of Waikiki, the tourists really connect with things they have heard; and since they’re in Hawaii, the surfing music was something they connected to,” she said. “It’s a great place for a performer to be seen — and it’s a great practice base for any musician who wants to play, because you have junk people walking down the street, you have cars honking behind you. It really hones in a musician’s focus to play on top of that and to learn what songs get a person’s attention.”

She continued her formal studies as well, learning some classical music arrangements from Jake Shimabukuro — “I always loved classical music, but Jake introduced me to classical music on the ukulele,” she said.

By age 13 she was appearing with Don Ho, after someone from the master entertainer’s band noticed her playing on the street. Ho taught her to “connect with the audience with eye contact and stories” and develop working relationships with other musicians, as well as the logistics of putting on a show.

IT SHOULDN’T be any surprise that the idea for a show at Hawaii Theatre came in a dream. Some of her songs have actually come to her in dreams, and she’s learned to use them in her compositions.

“I’d be dreaming and there’d be background music playing, and then I’d force myself to wake up so I could get my cellphone and record the lines that I heard, the melodies I heard and then I would go back to sleep,” she said. “And then later in the week I’ll go back to that, use what I have from that dream and create a song from it. It’s been a new thing, and it’s really cool.”

Two of the songs from the show, “Water” and “Ether,” originated in this manner, but Taimane bemoans the many songs that appeared in her dreams that she’s lost. “This has happened for years and years and years, where I’ll be dreaming and this beautiful music will come. Some come with words, some are without words, and then I’ll wake up and be like, ‘That was nice,’ but honestly, it takes less than a minute for that to be forgotten.”

It’s been exciting for her and her fellow performers to put the program together. Contemporary dancer Becky McGarvey, who will perform with Nathaniel Whittaker and Rose Wolfe, said Taimane’s music is “very dynamic” and works well for dancers. “It has a lot of movement in the music,” McGarvey said.

Taimane admits working with her presented a challenge to her fellow performers, who include tango dancers Jenny and Brett Griswold from Paradise Tango, lion dancers from the Shoalin Arts Society and aerialist Andrea Torres.

“They’ve been really easy to work with, especially since I do change my mind a lot,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll tell my aerialist that I have another song I want her on, and it’s two weeks before the show. … My singers, I’ll tell them I want different harmonies. … ”

“That’s the thing with this vision. It comes from the here and the now.”