Four dancers move across the stage in a broken waltz, each holding a large white rag doll. For a moment the figures and their doubles seem to move as one, a trick of the eye that makes it hard to tell who is leading. The dolls’ movements are uncannily expressive, almost alive. In the next sequence the dancers take turns going limp while the others lift and guide their bodies like marionettes.

Over a layered, dreamlike soundscape, a man’s recorded voice plays: “The key to my recovery was realising that I have a knowledge that other people do not have, because I’ve experienced the voices, the shadows, the visions, whatnot, and I can use that, and that can be used to really make a difference in not just research but in people’s lives.”

This is a rehearsal for The Mirror Stage, a new work by Brokentalkers, the Dublin-based theatre company founded by Gary Keegan and Feidlim Cannon. The piece has been created in collaboration with people who have experienced psychosis. Through dance, sound and striking stage imagery, it seeks to illuminate an experience too often shrouded in misunderstanding and fear, to represent what it feels like when the reality you inhabit no longer matches the one everyone else perceives.

The project began in 2022, when Brokentalkers were touring The Examination, a work about health and human rights in the prison system. Among the audience was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, who was deeply moved by the company’s approach to blending testimony, research and performance. Soon afterwards the RCSI invited Brokentalkers to collaborate on a new project exploring psychosis, rooted in the lived experiences of those who have navigat