Tonal Shifts

Tonal Shifts

Thursday June 26, 2025 | 21:30

Plyfa Space, Building 7C

Six embodied Improvisations of Self-Formation on Gender
A performance & somatic research project by Niko Rupllem

This series is a somatic investigation into the dissolution of binary gender through the lens of intersex and trans experience. Beginning with stereotypical gestures and postures drawn from classical aesthetics, the body transitions-both politically and kinesthetically-into states of multiplicity and contradiction.
Central to this work is the exploration of tonicity as a bodily instrument through which masculinity is inscribed and experienced within a body that embodies both masculine and feminine trajectories. Tonicity-the nuanced modulation of muscle tension and resistance-becomes the language through which the body communicates shifts in identity in real time.

Equally integral is the concept of succession, which refers to the biochemical and kinesthetic experience of hormonal changes, particularly estrogen, where the body traces and records transformation through variations in muscular tension, posture, and embodied memory. Each subtle change in the bodyΆs tone maps onto the fluid process of gender transition, rendering visible the interplay between physiology and identity.
Voice operates not as mere narration but as a tool of resonance and signal, accompanying the bodyΆs continuous reformation. The audience is invited not just to observe, but to engage-witnessing, projecting, and remembering the embodied process unfolding before them.

Rooted in a personal necessity, this work emerges from the experience of an intersex trans individual who inhabits fluidity not as abstraction but as lived reality. Since 2019, this research has evolved into a collective archive of trans and intersex narratives, reflecting shared histories of trauma, resistance, and desire. The body is never fixed; it moves through polarity-tension and release, exposure and withdrawal, weight and lightness-each biochemical shift translating into a kinetic gesture of transformation and assertion. This performance refuses tokenistic inclusion, instead positioning trans embodiment as central, structural, and inseparable from the architecture of the work itself. This project began in 2019 during @athensprideofficial as an initial attempt to observe the shifting qualities of the body during gender transition. Since then, it has become long-term research - rooted in lived experience and in the shared narratives of trans and intersex individuals who carry common traumas, resistances, and desires.
The body doesnΆt transform solely through social friction, but also through biochemical change. 123 testo-movement and 123456 oestro-movement track each micro-transition. Each chemical shift becomes a physical shift. Each new bodily tonality becomes a political signal. The trans body is never fixed. It moves between polarities:
tension / release
exposure / withdrawal
weight / lightness
It imprints, dissolves, reforms - through dance, voice, sound, and silence.
This is not tokenistic inclusion.
This is structure.
Trans embodiment is not marginal - it is foundational.

Six embodied improvisations on gender fluidity
A somatic inquiry into gender fluidity through six improvisations that explore tension, physical tone, directional movement, gravity, and suspension as tools of self-definition.
Tonicity and succession operate in parallel - not as abstract concepts, but as deeply embodied processes. They mark the unfolding of gender transition not merely as social discourse, but as an internal, hormonal, and kinetic inscription on the body.
The work approaches the body as formable matter - a field that negotiates identity through its very physical structure: tone, direction, lift, and weight. It proposes that the fluidity of gender is not a constructed fiction, but a deeply organic potential already embedded in the bodyΆs behavior.
Masculinity is treated not as a fixed aesthetic but as a somatic condition - a tension, a density, a direction - experienced within bodies that hold multiple or interwoven identities. Succession reflects the temporality of transformation, where every shift is archived through movement, breath, and resonance.
Rather than staging gender as representation, Tonal Shifts inhabits it - as process, as memory, as movement. It frames the trans and intersex body not as deviation, but as a central and fertile site of form-making.

Performer: @nikorupllem_ | instagram
Soundscape, live Antjie (@antzjie) | SoundCloud
Research Assistance: Dimmi instagram
Poster & Video: Super G, instagram
Register: Odyssey h Kamia  instagram
Rehearsals: Studio Metanira