This editorial marks the first co-edited issue of Applied Theatre Research (ATR): Socially Engaged Performance. In retitling the journal and reframing its edito-rial vision, we foreground socially engaged performance as an inclusive term that invites radical and interdisciplinary praxes from new ecologies and centres. Guided by Ng & utilde;g & itilde; wa Thiong'o's call to 'move the centre', we point to the contin-ued dominance of Eurocentric epistemologies and highlight the need for multi-ple, interconnected centres for cultures, knowledges and practices. Our reflections introduce inequities in academic publishing and access and new possibilities for mentorship and support for practitioners. By recommitting to mentorship and sponsorship as integral modes of moving the centre, this editorial situates ATR: Socially Engaged Performance as a platform for global dialogue and generosity, while sustaining applied theatre and socially engaged performance as critical, crea-tive and politically urgent fields.

As applied and socially engaged practices move beyond Cartesian dualisms, we seek vocabularies and practices for the body. This editorial discusses key themes emerging when theorizing and facilitating relationships to bodily being-in-the-world, pedagogy and performance. We order our observations into the three key areas: embodied pedagogies and methodologies; the body’s perception and memory; and body and identity. Attentive to consent and care, our authors ask how bodies are invited, managed or co-opted within pedagogic and epistemological frames, and how agency might be amplified rather than surveilled. We bring together new and foundational ideas from applied, socially engaged practices and performance studies to provide a context to, and mediate the ideas posed within this issue. We point to new research covering the politicization of the facilitator’s body, interrelations between the body’s perception and knowledge, and the risks in unearthing memory.

In Kenya there are an increasing number of applied theatre and peacebuilding projects taking place. Currently, the perspectives and experiences of those undertaking this work, on the ground, are not adequately reflected in academic discourse or in the processes of setting up projects or establishing modes of support and collaboration. In this article we address this by outlining findings from a series of two-day workshops with theatre practitioners. In doing so, we map the challenges practitioners face, the skills and knowledges they feel they already have, those they lack, and the future support and opportunities they would value.

This editorial addresses the integration of drama education and applied theatre in confronting the climate crisis, highlighting the complex interplay of responsibility, agency, and action in schools and community-based settings. With a focus on Climate Change Education (CCE), we argue for pedagogical, methodological, and creative frameworks that help us embrace the inherent messiness and complexities of intersecting crises. We introduce an evolving 'site-responsive pedagogy' that considers the interconnectedness of local and global scales: one that responds and adapts to the specific ecological and cultural contexts of diverse global communities.

This article considers the relationship between performance and the transnational public sphere, understood as a space in which a range of international actors come together to discuss, debate and advance ideas on topics which are mutually important. It suggests that performance in Rwanda has an important role in terms of reflecting, and facilitating, emerging conversations around the legacies of violence. As evidenced by the Ubumuntu Arts Festival, held annually in Kigali, it is not only at the national level that these conversations are significant. Global publics, including artists, audiences and researchers are all travelling to Rwanda to participate in events which have broader, international, significance.

This photo essay reflects on Rafiki Theatre's recent work exploring Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) issues in refugee camps in Northern Uganda. The images portray the context, challenges and ways in which Rafiki responded to the aims set by the project donor.

This short piece concludes this edition of Points and Practices by bringing together the contributions and offering some provocations for how they help to conceptualise the relationship between applied theatre and global sustainable development.

Building effective global partnerships are a key focus of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will shape how international development looks until 2030. This article explores how international partnerships in applied theatre/Theatre for Development (TfD) initiatives are performed, and draws on the author’s own experience of being employed on a freelance basis by a non-governmental organization (NGO) to build on the skills of a Ugandan team to utilize theatre. Throughout the article, key moments during a month-long period of training are reflected upon and analyzed with reference to debates within international development, postcolonial studies and applied theatre. Through synergizing these debates, it is suggested that a decentring of Western ‘expertise’ enables more effective partnerships to emerge.