Review: FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival 2026, August 14-16, 2026, ODC Theater, San Francisco, CA

The compelling line-up of contemporary dance-makers presenting work at the FACT/SF Summer Dance Festival 2026 is the strongest in memory.  The program of six shorter works, includes ensemble pieces from Bay locals: FACT/SF, Ishami Dance Company, and Karla Quintero, alongside visiting artists Minneapolis-based Sarah McCullough, Salt Lake City-based Megan O'Brien, and Seattle-based Tshedzom Tingkhye.  It isn’t clear if it is by coincidence or by design, but with the exception of FACT/SF’s, all the pieces wrestle with the challenges of self-discovery. This unifying theme, combined with the juxtaposition of perspectives, as each artist searches for, hones, resists or embraces their identity, invites deeper reflection.

In Tibetan-American Tshedzom’s Returning, she portrays with heart-breaking clarity her painful struggle to retain her imperiled homeland’s culture. Wearing the Tibetan flag as a cape, Tshedzom approaches a microphone intent on singing Tibet’s national anthem (performance of this patriotic song is strictly prohibited by the People’s Republic of China, particularly in the Tibetan Autonomous Region). The anguish she feels as she works to adapt her mouth to the unfamiliar words is palpable as she struggles physically to regain cultural literacy. Conquering her demons, she sings this sacred song with beautiful clarity and strength, communicating her pride in, and longing for, her forbidden homeland.  

At the dance’s conclusion, following a trail of crumpled paper edicts that arc across the floor, Tshedzom closes herself into a suitcase. Buried in bureaucracy? An act of self-erasure? A hidden traveler bound for outlawed lands?

Beyond its strength as an emotive piece of theater, Returning is effective activism which protests Chinese erasure of Tibet and pushes back against American obliviousness.  Text projected on the backdrop in English and Tibetan tells us that Tibetan-American Tshedzom’s Returning is dedicated to Tibetan activist Lobga Rangzen, who self-immolated outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York this July 2, a day after China’s new so-called “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law” was enforced. This is the first self-immolation by a Tibetan on US soil. Rangzen joins the ranks of more than 170 known self-immolations by Tibetans worldwide.  Tshedzom’s performance is wholly transporting, though at times the projected words distract.

Words can hardly do justice to the range of emotions which play across Sarah McCullough’s face, and dance through her limbs, as she performs Cluck, an absurd love duet danced with a raw chicken.  Originally choreographed by Shannon Hummel in 2016, McCullogh commissioned this version last year, after forming a strong connection to it as a student. Drawn to this improbable and inappropriate partner, McCullough approaches her partner with elegance and grace. Does she love it?  Will it love her back? Given enough care and support might it learn to fly? Will she always need to baby it?  McCullough embodies her evolving relationship to the chicken with unerring respect, while eliciting audience responses from poignant to humorous.  In the end they are equals, as McCullough kneels beside the object of her affection, holding the tip of its naked wing in her hand, as the equilibrium of hard-fought friendship resounds.

Sarah McCullough performing 'CLUCK' by Shannon Hummel

Three rolls of grass are slowly unrolled across the forestage, creating a singular strip of grass upon which dancers may laze in the sun. O’Brien’s a place for us to rest features choreographic collaborators and dancers, Caleb Daly, Courtney Mazeika, and Morgan Phillips as various aspects of a single person. Wearing matching loose filmy garments over gender-less bandeau tops and briefs, the dancers move separately before progressing to tandem mirroring and finally to intertwining in this contemplative abstract dance whose overall feeling is one of peacefulness and respite. In a recent interview for the Salt Lake Tribune, O’Brien who lives with a chronic genetic illness, hopes the piece may “expand the conversation and what can be a limited view of the ‘perfect, abled body’ by sharing an internal experience of living with a disability that isn’t visible to many on the surface.”

Fresh off an exciting site-specific work atop the MLK Waterfall fountain at Yerba Buena Gardens, Ishami Dance Company seems excited to continue to forge new creative ground with each other. Animals evolve into office workers, whose innate instincts continue to simmer just beneath the surface in the world-premiere of their Primal Rhythms. Snarling predators face-off in dappled jungle light as primeval birds perch nearby. Folding chairs become cages, traps, and platforms, when not arranged so closely that the elbows of one’s typing co-workers encroach with dangerous results.

A clubby musical beat throbs as Karla Quintero churns, her head and torso rotating in uncomfortable trajectories. Lurching slowly and awkwardly she resists and defies the insistent tempo.   In a creepy voice, she sings snippets of familiar lyrics from Madonna’s, Mariah’s, Whitney’s, Britney’s and Janet’s pop music anthems, causing us to hear the menace in their seductive promises. Is there danger here for those who follow the beat, who lean in to the “sweet dreams?” Quintero is gripping in her improvisational solo Starlight, a work-in-progress excerpt nicely developed since I last saw it outside in Yerba Buena Lane.  As she sheds her black button-up to reveal a bustier we feel her growing acquiescence. Quintero slowly cedes control to the pulse of the domineering songstresses of her adolescence. A set-piece alien-angel-puppet lends Quintero its head for a haunting finale in which its oversized glowing star-shaped eyes turn her into someone alien to herself.  I am excited to see how this work continues to develop.

The intricate gestural movement of FACT/SF’s CP#!, performed to a pop track of the same name by Charli XCX (choreographer Slender-White’s go-to musical artist), is deployed with speed and precision by a quartet of in-synch dancers.  I was just settling in to the vibe, when this 3-minute piece ended abruptly.  I am not opposed to the idea of a 3-minute piece, but to avoid feeling slighted, I wish I could have anticipated its brevity.   Lighting designer Del Medoff helps guide our focus, casting each of the sequin-clad dancers in their own bright pool of light. Medoff then toggles the spotlights on and off, highlighting the fleeting solos, duets and group unisons in this micro-work, perhaps the promising component of a longer work.

Despite three dances being reprisals of work presented elsewhere, Slender-White introduces the evening as one of all premieres, prompting me to reflect on how each time a dance is performed live it is born anew.  The artists are fresh versions of themselves; the venue’s differing constraints and possibilities drive movement and design adjustments and thus something unique evolves.  This opening night, all the work feels fresh and full of possibility. Cognizant of the pivotal time in which we live, these creatives strive to understand their responsibility to themselves and their communities.

Review by Jen Norris, published August 16 corrections August 21, 2026

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Production notes

fact/sf artistic director: Charlie Slender-White

lighting design & technical Direction: Del Medoff

Production Assistant: Faith Elder

Technicians: Colin Johnson and Travis Clark

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Sonam Tshedzom Tingkhye

Returning

Choreography and performance: Sonam Tshedzom Tingkhye

Animation: Zendan Nhangkar

Instrumental Music: Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts

Song: Dradul Nyenkyong

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Ishami Dance Company

Primal Rhythms

Concept & Direction: Akhil Joondeph,  Amit Patel, & Ishika Seth

Choreography: Akshay Radia, Amit Patel & Ishika Seth with significant contributions from the performers

Performers: Akhil Joondeph, Akshay Radia, Ekta Doshi, Ishika Seth & Sakshi Prabhu

Music: Akhil Joondeph

Costumes: Ishika Seth

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Sarah McCullough

Cluck

Choreography: Shannon Hummel in collaboration with the dancer*Performance: Sarah McCulloughMusic: “Poemes juifs, Op. 34: 1, Chant de Nourrice” by Darius Milhaud, performed by Gyorgyi Dombradi & Lambert Bumiller; “Nachtlied, Op. 96, No. 1 by Robert Schumann, performed by Dawn Upshaw and Richard Goode.

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Megan O'Brien

a place for us to rest

Choreography: Megan O’Brien in collaboration with dancers

Performed by: Caleb Daly, Courtney Mazeika, Morgan Phillips

Music: Megan O’Brien, Prm, Gia Margaret

Costume Design: Caleb Daly

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Karla Quintero

Star Light (excerpt / work-in-progress)

Choreography & Performance: Karla Quintero

Sound Design: Diego Munguia

Prop Design: Jonathan Mindes

Music: "Express Yourself" by Madonna; “Sweet Dreams” by La Bouche; and samples from “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears; “Don’t Walk Away” by Jade; “That’s the Way Love Goes,” by Janet Jackson; “Express Yourself” and “Open Your Heart” by Madonna; “Fantasy” by Mariah Carey”; “Weak” by SWV; “I’m Your Baby Tonight” by Whitney Houston

Text: Excerpted lyrics from: "Express Yourself,” “Open Your Heart,” “Vogue,” “Burning Up,” and “Justify My Love” by Madonna; “Fantasy” Mariah Carey; “That’s the Way Love Goes,” “Rhythm Nation,” “Control” by Janet Jackson; “I’m Your Baby Tonight” by Whitney Houston; “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears; “Don’t Walk Away” by Jade

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FACT/SF

CP#!Concept & Direction: Charlie Slender-White

Choreography: Charlie Slender-White with significant contributions from the performers

Performers: LizAnne Roman Roberts, Keanu Brady, Erin Coyne, Jonathan Kim

Music: Charli XCX

Costumes: Sporadic Assembly + Pivot Group

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