Kassna Kollectiv: User Manual for a Broken Machine (VOILÀ! Theatre Festival)

A broken machine. A manual. Three people trying to follow the instructions. But was the machine ever broken? Who decides what works in the first place?

A broken machine and a manual. Reader, Mover and Player attempt to follow the instructions and repair what has stopped working. But was the machine ever broken—and who decided that the manual worked in the first place?

User Manual for a Broken Machine is a darkly comic interdisciplinary performance by KASSNA, combining text, movement, live music, sound and video.

Using the language of instruction manuals, troubleshooting guides and malfunction reports as its performance score, three performers read, repeat, mistranslate, test and attempt to repair. As the instructions accumulate, the distinction between the people, the machine and the systems governing them begins to collapse.

Taking a broken Daewoo vacuum cleaner as its starting point, the work explores South Korea’s rapid industrialisation, capitalism and diaspora, asking how labour, migration, gender and family assign people roles and determine who is considered useful or functional. When a person can no longer follow the instructions, what is actually broken: the person, the machine or the system that wrote the manual?

For its Voila! iteration, the work introduces live cinema and AI-generated characters to expand its exploration of classification, authority and systems of control.

This performane will be in English and Korean.

THIS SHOW IS A PART OF THE VOILA FESTIVAL

Cast:

Suyoung Park

Seayool

Eden Jun

Lead Artist, Writer and Director: Namoo Chae Lee

Movement and Choreography: Suyoung Park

Composer and Sound Designer: Seayool Kim

Video Designer: Wilfred Wong

Lighting Designer: Slice of Light (Sammy Kissin & Nurul Wardani)

A work by KASSNA.

The production has been developed through Bold Theatre’s Bold Makers, with mentorship from Paul Hunter of Told by an Idiot.

Wed 11 & Thu 12 November 2026, 7 PM

Theatro Technis, 26 Crowndale Road, London NW1 1TT

Estimated running time: 70 minutes

Ticket prices: £15, £12 (Concessions)

Content Warnings: Images of Violence, demonstrations, and loud sound

Suitable for ages 15+

Find out more info or book your tickets on https://www.voilafestival.co.uk/events/user-manual-for-a-broken-machine/

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