Rio Sekiba

Born in Tokyo in 1996. At the age of two, she lost her sight and became completely blind. She was among the third cohort of graduates of the stage expression course at Tokyo Metropolitan Senior High School of Fine Arts, Performing Arts & Classical Music, and went on to graduate from the playwriting course in the theatre studies department of Nihon University College of Art. In 2021, she appeared in “The Tempest: To Swim in the Sea for the First Time”, directed by Jenny Sealey. In 2022, she performed in the sign-language courtroom drama “Terror”. Currently, as well as belonging to Mimiyomi Narration Office, she is active as an attendant at Dialogue in the Dark.

“Theatre is a mirror which reflects society”These are words which I heard countless times while studying theatre. In your encounters not only with theatre but also with film, books, music, or video games, have you ever sensed the society in which we live in the depths of the world view found there? This is not a simple matter of “It’s because it’s a work of non-fiction” or “That’s impossible with fantasy.” What is important is whether or not people live and breathe inside that work. If we sense the humans in it, we empathize; and we are probably reminded of our own daily lives and societies. This must be the sensation of looking into “a mirror which reflects society”.

In theatre, the audience and the actors have to be in the same time and place. Thanks to this, it has the merit of making it easy for us to feel that people are unquestionably alive there. We empathize deeply, evoking a vivid reality. Such experiences are probably what make people say that “theatre is a mirror which reflects society”. However, it is not the case that all theatre is such a wonderful mirror... The fact that the gap between successes and failures is so marked is also perhaps the fate of live performances.

I have liked theatre ever since my childhood. I often went to see plays with my family, and I still remember the content of many of them.

I lost my sight at two years old. I do not even remember the experience of seeing. However, I was able to receive an inclusive education at my local school. I was privileged to lead a good school life while using Braille. My totally blind father, my sighted mother, my elder sister, the teachers at the school for the blind... I am grateful for the warm support of all these allies. Out of everything, entering a senior high school with a stage expression course was the biggest and proudest choice of my life.

In the winter of my second year at senior high school, we were set the task of writing a play. This seems free, but it was a brutal three months or more in which I thought about every aspect of what a play was, and what I wanted to tell people. At that time, a friend said the following.

“I want you to play the role of someone who can’t see.” To be honest, this was quite a shock for me. Until then, the stage had been a place where I could stop being a visually impaired person. Nothing made me happier than to be told by the audience, “We didn’t know that you couldn’t see.”

I talked about this with my friend, and thought about it at length. What I completed two days before the presentation day was a tale of a trendy senior high school girl and one who could not see. The characters sang, fought with their white sticks – the story was absurd, but what I first realized at that time was that being unable to see is my weapon. This weapon shines particularly brightly on stage. It is the sense that I myself live and breathe there. I studied theatre at university, too, and have continued to be involved with theatre after graduation.

In recent years, attention has been paid to making theatre barrier-free, and there is more support for visually impaired people, such as the provision of audio guides, explanations prior to performances, or tactile models of the stage. The ways of creating plays themselves will perhaps alter in future.

Last year, I took part in a performance using sign language. During rehearsals which began with some deaf actors saying that they were encountering both sign language and visually impaired people for the first time, a particular actor threw out the following question.“There are blind actors on this stage, and of course, probably blind people among the audience, too. Speaking the lines in sign language and providing only subtitles, can we really say that this is a barrier-free performance?”

In response, stage directions were added in some parts. A method was born by which I provided commentary such as “Walks” or “Turns left”, and moved in line with this commentary. This was not a perfect audio guide, but these lines became a natural part of the play. I felt that it was a moment in which the possibilities of the play expanded.

I think that I will go on watching and creating theatre as a visually impaired person. After all, it is “a mirror which reflects society”. There is no way that we disabled people, who are members of society, could not be involved.