At this Philadelphia Orchestra performance, a scooter ‘could roll into a violin.’ But we don’t know for sure.

When you go to the Philadelphia Orchestra, you’re probably not expecting pole dancing above the percussion section and cows flying from the rafters.

But that’s exactly what you’ll get if you go see Suites from Carmen and The Firebird this weekend at Verizon Hall on the Kimmel Cultural Campus.

The orchestra paired up with Brian Sanders’ JUNK for a 45-minute Carmen, and Sanders thinks big.

A MOMIX dancer for 15 years, Sanders first worked with the orchestra in 2019 with Romeo & Juliet. Dancers flew on straps over the horn section. There was the suggestion of nudity.

“More Brahms, less boobs please,” a patron wrote to the orchestra.

But many people enjoyed it. For those who like the unexpected, Sanders offers a wild ride. Carmen is the final performance of JUNK’s 30th anniversary season.

On a recent afternoon, Sanders rehearsed his dancers in a chilly Frankford warehouse. Kat Corbett (as Carmen) and Sammy Wong (as Don José), both with taped-up injuries, stood on a platform four feet above the blackened cement floor and wrapped themselves around a pole more than 20 feet long in a beautiful dance. The pole is a character in this Carmen, and eventually the murder weapon. For one section, Corbett donned red sky-high heels.

Not all was perfect. When the dancers needed to see how they’d lean against the pole and each other for a kiss, Sanders, with three herniated discs and a pinched nerve, hauled himself onto the platform and then the pole.

“I can dance,” Sanders said. “I just can’t walk.”

The scene looked a little scary, but Sanders said that was not the perilous part.

“The aerial work isn’t close to the edge” of the platform, he said. But there will be scooters dangerously near the edge of the 25-by-15-foot oval. “I wanted that feeling of a bullfighting ring.

“The scooters, they’re sort of rolling around, and they’ve certainly come close to rolling off the edge. Then [the dancers] have to worry about jumping off of it. So they jump off of the scooter and the scooter rolls off the edge and it could roll into a violin. We don’t know.”

Carmen was developed after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. A Tchaikovsky trilogy Sanders hoped to choreograph became impossible.

Instead, he chose an orchestral version of Carmen that does not use the wind instruments, since the musicians would have to wear masks. Instead of a theatrical performance, he made a video. The dancers were filmed in a studio off-site, but the scenes cut from the orchestra to the dancers, making it look like they were together.

This time, the dancers and orchestra are reunited, and the piece has been expanded and reworked to fit Verizon Hall.

His Carmen is based on the book rather than the opera, and “it’s a whole lot modern.”

“I don’t really tell a story, I examine all the scenarios and characters in a very modern way,” Sanders said. His title character is “a powerful, independent, sort of righteous-in-her-own-beliefs-and-creed woman of today.”

It features 10 JUNK performers, including Sanders, who plays the archaeologist and narrator and does not dance. Other performers ride hoverboards and perform on a table.

After Carmen, everything will get broken down in time for the orchestra to regroup to play Firebird.

What does the orchestra think of all this? One musician put a small mirror on her music stand during Romeo & Juliet so she could watch the action, Sanders said.

“I try and push the expectation. I mean, now we’re doing hoverboards in classical music. We’re doing pole dancing. We’re doing cow dancing.

“I sort of fold it in such a way that you’re like, ‘Oh, this totally works. And it’s actually quite beautiful.’ "

“Suites from Carmen” and “The Firebird,” with Brian Sanders’ JUNK and the Philadelphia Orchestra. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Verizon Hall on the Kimmel Cultural Campus, 300 S Broad St. $22-$168. 215-893-1999 or philorch.org.