Soraya Thomas is building her next show the way a producer builds a portfolio: research phases, partner venues, a documentary asset, and a touring footprint spread across two territories. The choreographer, who directs the company Morphose from La Réunion, is preparing “Exult,” a piece that will not be officially created until March 2027 on the island, but whose economics and creative groundwork are already taking shape.
The first public showing came a few months ago in Bordeaux, at the Méca, one of the partner venues attached to the creation of Exult. There, Thomas appeared alongside her artistic collaborator David Drouard, himself a dancer and choreographer, to present early sketches of the piece. The preview logic is deliberate. In the performing arts, securing partner venues early is what makes a creation viable, and the Bordeaux appearance gave Morphose a platform months before the premiere.
Meanwhile, the project’s research phase has been substantial and, unusually, self-documenting. It began with a documentary film of the same name, directed by Vincent Laborde and Soraya Thomas, which traces the two artists’ search for what they call the initial, spontaneous gesture, the raw movement tied to territory and rural life. Thomas describes the film’s aim as an effort “to capture raw, uncontrolled movement, the universal impulse.” That documentary, alongside the writings of philosopher Clément Rosset, notably his book La Force majeure, from which Thomas drew a conception of joy as “an impulse of insubmission in light of a lucid and cold existence,” served as an essential research stage before the stage writing began. The full conversation with Thomas and Drouard about the creation of Exult is available in the podcast L’Oreille est hardie, and further background appears in the Outre-mer La 1ère piece at https://la1ere.franceinfo.fr/l-oreille-en-replay-soraya-thomas-entre-la-reunion-la-tanzanie-et-l-hexagone-pour-son-prochain-spectacle-exult-1750968.html.
The geographic scope of that research is itself a strategic choice. The two artists travelled to three territories: the Mayenne, David Drouard’s home ground; Tanzania; and La Réunion, the island Thomas holds dear. She is of Franco-Mauritian origin and has lived in La Réunion, which she calls the “intense island,” for twenty-five years. Exult, in her summary, could be described as the time of the encounter, a meeting with people, cultures, traditions and places suited to finding and working on that first, primal gesture.
The casting model reflects the same research logic. Beyond three professional dancers on stage, amateur performers will join the production to bring the spontaneity and freshness of untrained, raw movement, since the piece depends on observing bodies not destined for the stage. Early elements of playing, staging and scenography suggest, according to the report, a promising piece ahead of its premiere next year.
Behind the creative work sits a structural decision with clear financial logic. Morphose remains based in La Réunion but has decided to plant a second foot in mainland France, deepening its presence particularly in the Aquitaine region. Like other overseas artists before her, Thomas frames this as a matter of logic and durability in the diffusion of the company’s work. Touring from an island base means travel costs, per diems and scattered tour dates; concentrating activity, building partnerships with cultural venues and securing the multiple performances a live performance structure needs to survive are ways of achieving economies at a time when culture is receiving less and less support. In that reading, the Aquitaine implantation is less an artistic statement than a hedging strategy, spreading the company’s operational risk across two markets.
Thomas’s personal trajectory also feeds the work. Her earlier pieces explored her intimate landscape through her own mixed heritage, looking toward the Indian Ocean, and she increasingly assumes her geographic identity at the heart of her creative output. Until Exult reaches the stage in 2027, Morphose continues to tour its existing repertoire, keeping the company’s revenue and visibility alive while the new creation matures. The open question is whether the dual-base structure can convert a 2027 premiere into the sustained run of performances that a live performance company needs to stay solvent.