Photo of Netta Yerushalmy courtesy of “5.2×3.4” series.

If you follow contemporary dance, there’s an intimate performance coming up this weekend you should know about. Writer and curator Sandra Teitge, a recent transplant to Minneapolis-Saint Paul from Berlin, has begun a new art and conversation series in the re-purposed space of what used to be a St. Paul firehouse.

On Saturday, March 22, Teitge’s “5.2×3.4” series (so named for the standard dimensions of a typical East German living room) will feature a collaborative work by New York City-based dance artist, Netta Yerushalmy, and philosopher David Kishik. Yerushalmy is one to watch: the recipient of a whole mess of prestigious fellowships (Bogliasco, Guggenheim, NYFA and Six Points), she has been artist-in-residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and the Institute for Cultural Inquiry – Berlin. She is commissioned to create dances for companies across the country, recently among them the Minneapolis-based Zenon Dance Company.

In the informal environs of F.D. 13, Yerushalmy and Kishik will perform “The Work of Dance in the Age of Sacred Lives.” The piece premiered in November 2013, part of a Berlin-based conference celebrating the 100th anniversary of “Le Sacre du Printemps” (“The Rite of Spring”), the famous work featuring choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky set to the music of Igor Stravinsky. For their collaboration, Yerushalmy dances – appropriating gestures specific to Nijinsky’s choreography, repurposing them in new configurations, while Kishik delivers a scholarly paper on “biopolitics, with its strong sacrificial undertones, its fixation on the body and bare life.” Sounds like heady stuff.

The stated aim in the performance description is to combine dance with these philosophical ideas  in an effort to recontextualize Nijinsky’s choreographic work in a new way, “on the threshold between classicism and modernism.” It’s sure to be thought-provoking and likely also quite beautiful. And the opportunity to see performance of this caliber, and in such an intimate setting, is rare indeed.

F.D. 13 presents Netta Yerushalmy and David Kishik in “The Work of Dance in the Age of Sacred Lives” on March 22, 7 p.m. at the old firehouse at 926 Hampden Ave., St. Paul.  Soup and drinks are served after each performance, and there’s a suggested donation of $15-20 to cover the artists’ fees and refreshments. RSVP by email if you’d like to reserve a spot: five2bythree4 (a) gmail.com. Keep track of upcoming “5.2×3.4” events via the series’ website, www.five2bythree4.wordpress.com.