The girl’s head thrashes about wildly, her neck jerking at alarming angles. It is the archetypal image of a carcrash film, the force of the impact twisting the body into unnatural, sickening shapes. Her bare throat looks like a stem about to snap. Behind her stands a man, the agent of her whiplash; he yanks her neck to and fro.

So begins “Amplification,” the signature piece of the Australian company BalletLab, currently having its American debut as part of P.S. 122’s new winter festival of contemporary dance. “Amplification,” which is about car crashes, was researched at an emergency room and a morgue.

Not surprisingly, “Amplification” created a stir at its 1999 Australian premiere, but its staying power has earned it a place on a short list of Australian Next Wave hits. Leading that list is Chunky Move’s “Tense Dave” (2003), an edgy, experimental piece created by the Australian Lucy Guerin, who, like Mr. Adams, spent much of the late ’80s and early ’90s in New York dancing for downtown choreographers. “Tense Dave” came to Dance Theatre Workshop last year and walked away with the Bessie for outstanding choreography. Now New York is getting a look at “Amplification.”

BalletLab’s artistic director, Phillip Adams, wants to “magnify the 1.6 second ‘disassociation’ freeze time which occurs at the moment of impact.” The dance focuses on the instant when a heavy machine mangles a defenseless body. “Amplification” makes you squirm at the mismatch between metal and skin.

Unlike many contemporary dances, “Amplification” has a concept that lends itself to vivid illustration. In addition to those shocking, spasmodic movements, the piece incorporates zipup body bags and eerie interrogation hoods. Antiseptic fluorescent lights spit and glare. Immediately you notice the sounds: a video-game shooting gallery, a bit of dialogue, and melody from an early Hollywood melodrama, a snippet of pianobar jazz, an unsettling bass groove. The immensely talented turntable composer Lynton Carr mixes his vinyl collage live, creating tension and friction through inspired contrasts.

The choreography works best when it sticks close to the idea of torque acting on limbs: a flopping neck, a body tossed back and forth like a rag doll. Less successful are extended sections with props, which have the air of bizarre arts-and-crafts projects.

Dancers drag toy cars by clumsily maneuvering spools of string. Two girls are seated in chairs, facing each other, with cassette tapes shoved in their mouths like bits; two other dancers crisscross the long strand of tape between them, as if in a perverse game of cat’s cradle. Later, dancers wrap and unwrap “dead” bodies in cloth, folding and unfolding corners as if experimenting with origami.

“Amplification” is a creative and intriguing dance. The problem is that Mr. Adams has about 30 minutes’ worth of things to say – and an hour-long dance. To fill the time, he inserts a seemingly interminable section involving a coffin, a pile of comatose bodies, and lots of nudity. This slow-motion, ritualized death sequence feels disconnected from what has come before and far less compelling. Those 1.6 seconds were fascinating, but Mr. Adams hasn’t fully worked out the before and after.

P.S. 122’s Winter Dance Festival, featuring BalletLab, will be performed until January 24 (150 First Avenue, at East 9th Street, 212-477-5288).