Watching Akram Khan’s “bahok,” at City Center on Tuesday night, I thought of the plays “No Exit” by Sartre and “Outward Bound” by Sutton Vane. In each, an unsuspecting cross-section of humanity finds itself stranded in a limbo that turns out to be purgatory. Enforced proximity and uncertainty incite a heightened airing of human traits and foibles, which are put under inspection as if in a bell jar. Plays come to mind probably because “bahok” (which means “carrier” in Mr. Khan’s familial Bengali) uses dialogue as well as movement. It uses a bit of everything, really, folding sequential as well as simultaneous incidents into ensemble dances. The music is composed by Nitin Sawhney, and blends Eastern influences with synthesized sound design.

The show’s ensemble is drawn both from Mr. Khan’s own London-based company as well as the National Ballet of China. It consists of Eulalia Ayguade Farro, Saju Hari, Young Jin Kim, Meng Ning-Ning, Andrej Petrovic, Shanell Winlock, Wang Yitong, and Zhang Zhenxin. The dancers function like a control group, on which experimentations in reactions and interactions are carried out.

The set-up is an ongoing flight delay, and the stranded travelers refer frequently to an electronic signboard for updates on their flight. Sometimes they huddle, glancing up for edification, but just as frequently they stand as individuals furtively stealing an anxious look. The board offers instruction, but sometimes it resembles a sprawl of Scrabble pieces more than any coherent communication.

Ms. Farro plays a disoriented young woman, perched downstage right. “I don’t know where I came from,” she tells us. She keeps trying to engage other people in conversation. They’re not that responsive. They have other things to attend to, or they don’t want to get enmeshed in her confusion. They retreat to their cell phones or their companions. If, as “bahok” proceeds, there’s a full-bore ensemble taking place, with an outrider, she’s going to be the outrider.

Upstage left, Ms. Yitong dances a duet with Mr. Petrovic, in which she is so limp and passive that he uses her own hand to slap her into — is it consciousness? Ms. Farro has a solo, in which she, as many of the dancers throughout the piece do, spins on her haunches, then vaults acrobatically upright or into the air.

Posited here as one of the hazards of contemporary travel are the security gatekeepers, who vet passenger pools for possible malefactors, but who are far from infallible in their searches and seizures. We are introduced to a man and woman sitting downstage left. Mr. Kim is being interrogated by unseen agents, and Ms. Winlock is trying to translate for him. “I am Korean,” Mr. Kim explains. From her perch across the stage, the still-disoriented Ms. Farro replicates what’s being said during the questioning.

In “bahok,” dance cross-pollinates with dialogue and is used sometimes to portray character, as in the inhibited solo of Ms. Ning-Ning. Sometimes, dance is used to transition from the particular to the general. Sometimes it’s used as a means to shift formal gears, as when tall Ms. Yitong starts to perform petite allegro. Mr. Hari, who looks a little like Mr. Khan and so inevitably seems like a stand-in for the choreographer, attempts to support her as she goes wild with whiplash, recalling Jerome Robbins’s “The Concert.” He does his own solo of shimmies and dodges, jabs and flapping elbows.

Downstage, the interrogation continues, while catty-corner upstage, Mr. Zhenxi n and Mr. Petrovic dance together before rolling to the ground fighting. There’s a huddle of many dancers from which Ms. Farro is excluded, until she has the last laugh by surmounting them all until they dissolve into a circle that is almost blown apart like a detonation.

Often, Mr. Khan choreographs in paroxysms. The phrases are short and churning.

Performing en masse, Mr. Khan’s dancers typically hit the ground running. They’re scrambled into buffeted waves; the feet are somehow locomotive but subservient to the thrashing torsos. There’s no question that Mr. Khan has something he wants to say. Putting the pieces together, threading the incidents and dialogue into the concerted ensembles can seem over-determined for all the carefully plotted happenstance.

Finally, at the end of 75 minutes, all the wayfarers are sitting one by one looking up at the screen. We have fast-forwarded to a resolution. The disarry we’ve seen has been a voyage of its own, and now the information board reads “Home.”

Until April 27 (West 55th Street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-581-1212).