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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
TO BOOK TICKETS PLEASE FOLLOW THIS LINK
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
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.
USEFUL INFORMATION
Estimated running time
70 minutes
Performance times
7 PM
Ticket prices
£15, £12 (Concessions)
Concession
Full-time students, those aged under 16, senior citizens, the unwaged, members of Equity and BECTU
Access
Theatro Technis is fully wheelchair accessible. Guide dogs and hearing dogs are welcome in the auditorium. There is a Loop system fitted in the main auditorium. If you have any questions or specific requests, please email boxoffice@theatrotechnis.com.
Content Warnings: Images of Violence, demonstrations, and loud sound
Suitable for ages 15+
