A PLACE TO FALL TO PIECES 

A Nomad’s Map of Story and Song

“Your face is like a map. I can see all of the wheres you have ever been in that line between the corner of your mouth and your nose.”

You are on an island. And it is sinking. It is not a metaphor, nor is it a dream. It is the end. But how can you drown, when you haven’t a place to lay your bones? And when you don’t know where it is, how can anyone bring you home? 

Our story is a migratory one. We were not born in the place our parents are from, as they were not born in the place their parents were from. We were not born in the place we grew up. We did not grow up in the place we experienced teenagehood. When we were older the house we abandoned was utterly abandoned and now when we return to what we call home it is a place still new to us.

We have always been trespassers on other people’s homelands. 

And now, in this terrifyingly transitory world, we wonder, what is it like, to be From Somewhere? To have a voice, a land, a story, that is your birthright and is haunted by ghosts that bear your name. And we ask, lacking this, how is it that you know where to belong? 

Created and performed by folk/spoken word duo Isobel and Anna Hughes, A Place To Fall To Pieces is a search for roots, a love letter to the places we have been but never been from. With original composition, spoken word, storytelling and song, Anna and Isobel take you on a lyrical journey, through memory and magic and earth, to seek the indelible mark our country leaves on us and where the permanence of Home truly lies.

We are searching for a place to lay our bones. A Place To Fall To Pieces. 

A Place to Fall to pieces has been supported by Sage Gateshead, Mahogany Opera and premiered at The Space in Feb 2021.