Nkechi Njaka
ICE. CAR. RAGE., presented at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco, August 14–16, 2026, is a new reimagining of Jess Curtis, Keith Hennessy, and Jules Beckman’s 1997 Ice Car Cage, directed by Gabriele Christian and performed by jose e. abad, Styles Alexander, and Clarissa Rivera Dyas, produced by GRAVITY.
When we think of an archive, we often imagine it as something fixed, preserved, catalogued, and protected. In what ways can performance be archival? And in what ways can works recreated carry and hold the lineages and legacies of those who have come before us and who have significantly shaped us?
ICE. CAR. RAGE. re-inhabits most of the original’s architecture; powerful, acrobatic and risky contact improvisation in an outdoor location, three dancers who occupy the “stage,” an autonomous car, a ladder, a block of ice, and instead of a cage, there was a ship. There was also a visible Artistic Director who made an appearance mid-show, poetic monologues, a song, a rap, beautiful images projected on the wall of the parking lot, the massive stretch of trees that line the hill on top of Fort Mason and an exhibition titled PLEASE. STAY. TOUCH. Devoted to Curtis’s life and legacy, the exhibition gathered recordings, photographs, objects, films, and other traces of his practice, placing the new work inside a larger body of work rather than existing as an isolated event.
The original Ice/Car/Cage emerged from San Francisco’s radical experimental performance culture of the 1990s. Commissioned by the San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Dance Festival, it was made for a post-industrial city and performed in an abandoned parking lot. The car traveled in circles while Curtis, Hennessy, and Beckman danced with it, tumbled over it, climbed on top of it, and jumped off of it. Nearly thirty years later, the work they created emerges differently and takes on a new form in and in a new context.
The first sound was loud hip-hop — specifically M.O.B.’s “Cold as Ice.” Three figures entered the space, their silhouettes emerging through the fog. They were laughing, dancing, traveling together, seemingly enjoying the moment before the work’s physicality took over. abad began a durational solo, building a nest and staying there to occupy it, and reading poetry. Dyas transitioned to a fluid contemporary solo with an ice pick — extensions, turns, expansive gestures. At times their solo appeared as a duet, dancing directly with the wall. abad occupied another part of the space before Alexander reentered, this time with the car singing Erykah Badu’s “Didn’t Cha Know,” wearing a painted face — clown jester makeup to emphasize a playful yet sinister presence that remained throughout the performance. Alexander held the audience’s attention with long monologues with and on top of the car, as California landscapes projected on the parking lot wall. The monologue paused a few times for more poetic words from abad and a trumpet playing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Later, Alexander and abad moved together to Janet Jackson’s “Would you Mind,” a seductive track, their bodies undulating across the top of the car in a sensual duet. Against the industrial setting of the parking lot, the intimacy of the scene felt almost cinematic.
Gravity co-director Christian interrupted the performance, which felt like a midway point. Stating only what an Art Director might be thinking mid-show — reflecting on the work, the changes needed, the difficulty in it being “different,” directing friends, lamenting on not living in SF anymore, affordable housing, nostalgia, other ruminations. An ensemble formed, the trio of the dancers moved together in more contemporary choreography.
The premise of ICE. CAR. RAGE. is materially very simple: a car, a block of ice, and three performers who are navigating a political climate that is unjust, confusing and harmful. But simplicity does not make the encounter with this work or their movement simple. Operated by Christian using remote and only to give it power, the battery-powered car was still physically tied off by bungee to move in a circle. Although older than all three performers, its autonomous movement immediately felt analogous to the increasingly familiar Waymo vehicles circulating through San Francisco. This changed the landscape of what freedom means in this context, and even in the context of the original work. Here, however, the car became a choreographic partner on the ideals of freedom and autonomy, an independent force continually reorganizing the dancers’ relationship to space. The three performers climbed onto it, flew from it, tumbled across it, cartwheeled over it, rolled underneath it, jumped over one another, were dragged and pulled, and performed difficult stunts on both the vehicle and, at one point, with a ladder positioned on top of it. The movement was acrobatic, fast, and dangerous.
There is a particular kind of attention required when watching a body perform something complicated, risky or dangerous. The eye widens to get a better understanding, then begins to anticipate impact before it happens, the body of the viewer might subtly brace for impact alongside the performer, a softening of relief when we see that the performer is OK, then excitement — thrill. I found myself in this state repeatedly while watching ICE. CAR. RAGE., this reimagined work that placed three Black queer bodies in an outdoor landscape of asphalt, fog, ice, and a moving car.
I watched with both admiration and concern. As a Black choreographer, dancer, and performance artist, I have a particular awareness of watching Black bodies take physical risks. I know the intelligence and training beneath a movement that might appear reckless, but that knowledge did not take the risk away. I found myself wondering about the asphalt, whether the ground had been cleared of glass, what protections were in place, and what would happen if something went wrong. These questions became a texture of my viewing. I was not only watching what the dancers could do; I was also thinking about what we ask bodies to risk in order to make an image. And the risk some bodies must take in hopes of liberation.
The words “DRY GOODS,” painted across the car, offered another layer of this. The words reference Henry “Box” Brown, who escaped slavery by shipping himself to freedom in a wooden crate marked “dry goods.” Within the work, the phrase transforms the car into more than a machine. The car is a vehicle carrying associations of movement, escape, and liberation.
The performance ended with Dyas and the block of ice. They gradually removed layers of clothing until they are left in a sports bra and pants, eventually lying across the block with their bare skin against the ice. After so much speed, machinery, tumbling, and impact, the scene became almost unbearably still. We could all feel the cold from where we stood.
The performers were not simply replicating the repertoire of Curtis, Hennessy, and Beckman. While all three have danced with Curtis, their relationship to the material is embodied and historical and uniquely and distinctly their own. They are not approaching an artifact from the outside, they are participating in its transmission.
Performance disappears almost by definition, ephemerality is what archives try to capture, often not successfully. A body occupies a space, a light changes, a score ends, an audience leaves. Yet behind that ephemeral event exists a vast accumulation of research, relationships, rehearsal, failure, experimentation, aesthetic decisions, and community. The original Ice/Car/Cage belonged to another San Francisco and another moment in queer performance history. ICE. CAR. RAGE. does not ask us to return there. It asks what survives, what has changed, and what becomes possible when another generation of Black Queer artists takes hold of the apparatus.
Nkechi Deanna Njaka (she/her) is a practice-based creative researcher, choreography artist, public speaker and culture writer whose work explores the intersection of embodied presence, somatic research, well-being, science, art, and social practice. She is the founder of The Compass, NDN lifestyle studio, and co-founder of the sleep app DreamWell, emphasizing mindfulness and creativity as essential for individual and global well-being.
“ICE.CAR.RAGE.” (Re)Defines The Experiment was originally published in ODC.dance.stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.