“Music,” he said, “is movement.”

Yet musicians are “so inhibited in our bodies” and the “narrow spaces we play in,” he said, especially pianists, who perform hunched over a keyboard. He added that it has been “amazing” to see the players in the Camerata let go as they embrace the choreographic elements of their programs. Members of the ensemble — in interviews during a rehearsal, then on a bus trip to their tour stop in Bourg-en-Bresse, France — said that the movement has been liberating.

Ricardo Gil Sanchez, a violist, said that the dancing, while demanding, released his inner actor. Indeed, the hard part for him was to memorize a Mozart symphony. Clara Rada Gomez, a cellist, said that she loves it when, in the Mozart, the dancer tilts back her chair and she must continue playing with her instrument resting on her body. She finds it exhilarating.

Lully’s music, written for Moli è re’s “Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” practically screams for a dancing complement. And the Camerata’s performance gets you thinking: Why shouldn’t musicians be the ones to do it? Mr. Garaio Esnaola ’s choreography puts a powerful contemporary spin on Molière’s comedy , which tells of a pompous, bourgeois gentleman who longs to be accepted by the aristocracy. The Camerata’s version focuses on a stranger — a suspicious “other,” the dancer — who shows up and wants to join the players. But, not knowing what to make of him, they put him off at first. Eventually, there are some scenes of courtly mingling and good will; yet the musicians end by slowly marching offstage, playing a stately dance, some of them shedding their shoes — the only remnants of the encounter the dancer is left with.

Flawless execution, even with players this skilled, would be impossible, given the demands of moving, dancing and playing from memory. Yet the performances in Bourg-en-Bresse were impressive, incisive and richly expressive.

“Before anything, we demand from ourselves to be a top-notch orchestra with a level of excellence on its own terms,” Mr. Greilsammer said. Otherwise, he added, these “radical projects” will have “no life beyond.”

Although the orchestra’s programs regularly offer contemporary — even commissioned — works, each one includes core repertory, frequently in traditional (which is to say dance-free) performances played from sheet music. The orchestra’s debut recording, “Sounds of Transformation,” released last year by Sony, juxtaposes works by Lully, Henry Purcell and Jean-Philippe Rameau with jazz-styled arrangements and transformations of the pieces, featuring the pianist Yaron Herman. These pairings are clustered around Ravel’s Piano Concerto, with Mr. Greilsammer as both the soloist and conductor, one of the most exciting accounts of this piece available.