No Safety Net 3.0
UMS’s Renegade Festival returns for its third installment in January and February 2023.
This three-week festival in Ann Arbor uses theater performance and installation art — in unexpected ways — to address issues that are relevant to our time, including the environment and climate change, capitalism, forced migration, and our unspoken private lives.
Ranging from playful and archly funny to sobering and at times disorienting, the events in No Safety Net allow us the opportunity to critically examine the world we live in while simultaneously looking toward our role in creating a more hopeful future.
No Safety Net 3.0 is presented in partnership with the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
Explore all performances and events below.
Sign up for our No Safety Net interest list to receive updates about added events and contextual activites.
NEW! Festival Pass
Purchase a Festival Pass and experience all five ticketed No Safety Net events for just $99 — more than 25% off individual event pricing.
Upcoming Events
No Safety Net
Limited Availability!
Robin Frohardt
The Plastic Bag Store
The Plastic Bag Store is a public art installation and immersive film experience that questions our culture of consumption and convenience — specifically, the enduring effects of our single-use plastics.
No Safety Net
salt:dispersed
Selina Thompson
In this digital presentation, performance artist Selina Thompson recreates her award-winning dramatic monologue about a journey she made by cargo ship to retrace the triangular route of the transatlantic slave trade.
FREE EVENTS
The Plastic Bag Store
Family Art Making Activity
Families are invited to visit The Plastic Bag Store and participate in a guided hands-on workshop.
No Safety Net
Cultural Exchange Rate
Tania El Khoury
Lebanese artist Tania El Khoury presents an interactive live art project, in which you immerse yourself into one family’s secret boxes to explore sounds, images, and textures that trace more than a century of border crossings.
FREE EVENTS
Penny Stamps Speaker Series
Tania El Khoury:
Cultural Exchange Rate – A Case Study
Hear from the creator of Cultural Exchange Rate, part of UMS’s No Safety Net 3.0 Festival.
FREE EVENTS
Talking Trash
An Interactive Discussion Inspired by The Plastic Bag Store
Turn inspiration into impact with insights from researchers, scientists, artists, and activists tackling the question: What can we do about single-use plastics?
No Safety Net
Our Carnal Hearts
Rachel Mars
Rachel Mars and four belting female singers come at you with a hilarious dark show about the hiding workings of one of our uglier emotions…envy.
FREE EVENTS
No Safety Net 3.0 Student Closing Party
featuring CeCe June and the Calista Quartet
Join the University Musical Society Student Committee for a night of performances to celebrate UMS’s No Safety Net Festival, featuring music from CeCe June and the Calista Quartet.
No Safety Net
Your Sexts Are Shit: Older Better Letters
Rachel Mars
Rachel Mars’s filthy, funny, and intimate show creates a love letter to the lost art of letter writing…which has degraded into X-rated anonymized sexts from platforms like Whatsapp and Grindr.
On the Blog
STORY
Dear Most Valued Customers…
Read a message from Robin Frohardt, the artist and creative mind behind The Plastic Bag Store.
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STORY
Robin Frohardt: The Magic of the Mundane
The Plastic Bag Store creator Robin Frohardt joins U-M’s Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series.
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STORY
UMS Connect: Rachel Mars
UMS programming manager Mary Roeder interviews writer and performer Rachel Mars, in advance of her two shows coming to UMS's No Safety Net 3.0 Festival:
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STORY
Growing a Long-Lasting Tomato 🍅
Robin Frohardt shares how a tomato is made for The Plastic Bag Store.
READ MORE
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