East Asian women-led interdisciplinary performance collective KASSNA will present User Manual for a Broken Machine, a new work written and directed by Namoo Chae Lee, at Bloomsbury Festival this October before transferring to Voila! Theatre Festival in November.
Described as a darkly comic exploration of productivity, failure and the systems that shape human behaviour, the production combines text, movement, live music, electronic sound and video to examine what happens when a person can no longer follow the instructions they have been given.
At the centre of the piece is a broken Daewoo vacuum cleaner, which becomes the starting point for a wider investigation into South Korea’s rapid industrialisation and the human cost of measuring people according to their productivity.
In User Manual for a Broken Machine, three performers known as Reader, Mover and Player attempt to diagnose a malfunctioning machine using its instruction manual. As they read, repeat, mistranslate and test the manual’s directions, the distinctions between people, machines and the systems governing them begin to break down.
The production uses the language of instruction manuals, troubleshooting guides and malfunction reports as a performance score, transforming instruction into choreography, repair into ritual and failure into a potential act of resistance.
The cast features Eden Jun as Reader, Suyoung Park as Mover and Seayool as Player. The creative team includes Namoo Chae Lee as writer and director, Suyoung Park as movement director and choreographer, Seayool as composer and performer, and Wilfred Wong as video designer.
The work was developed through Bold Theatre’s Bold Makers programme, with mentorship from Paul Hunter of Told by an Idiot.
Audiences will encounter different versions of the production across its two festival appearances. At Bloomsbury Festival, Holy Cross Church will be transformed into an immersive performance environment, while the Voila! Theatre Festival presentation at Theatro Technis will incorporate live cinema and AI-generated characters.
Founded by artists working across theatre, movement, music and visual art, KASSNA creates interdisciplinary performances exploring migration, cultural inheritance, gender and the systems through which people are classified and understood. Previous productions include Cancelling Tiger, which sold out at Bloomsbury Festival 2025, and Standing in Between.
User Manual for a Broken Machine runs at Holy Cross Church as part of Bloomsbury Festival on 9 and 10 October 2026, before performances at Theatro Technis as part of Voila! Theatre Festival on 11 and 12 November 2026.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
