Advocates, in partnership with the Literary Activism Club and the women and gender studies department, hosted the fifth annual drag show in Umble Center on Saturday. The show featured three professional drag queens: Natosha Salad, Lili Xtravaganza and Beba Hollywood.

Salad acted as the night’s master of ceremonies. After she performed her first number, she explained that this year the professional drag queens had each incorporated a new element into their performances. 

“With current events, we are going to include our cultures in tonight’s show,” she said. “We all need to be proud of where we come from, because America is made of all different kinds of cultures.”

Six student performers took to the stage alongside the professional drag queens. One of these students was Korbin Hershberger, a first-year music education major. He performed a number to the song “Toucha-Toucha-Touch Me” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

“When I first stepped on stage, I was like, ‘Okay, I’ve got to do this now,’” Hershberger said. “But then once the music started playing … I kind of became a completely different person.”

Hershberger stated that part of the reason he wanted to participate in the drag show was his love of doing makeup. During a pre-show workshop, which Hershberger attended, the professional drag queens gave the student performers tips on how to achieve drag-style makeup and hair. 

Ellie Nickel, a senior social work major and Advocates leader, said that the theater department provided costumes and makeup that the students were allowed to use. “That just made it more accessible,” she said. “For a lot of the student queens performing, it was their first time, so they don’t have the same sort of supplies that the professional queens have.”

Towards the middle of the show, audience members were invited on stage to take part in a catwalk competition where they demonstrated their best runway walks. The winner of the competition was determined by audience applause. 

Ines Villaseñor Rodríguez, a first-year molecular biology and biochemistry major, was declared by Mireya Alemán the “clear winner.”

“I feel great, but not for winning. I feel great because I was myself there, dancing, doing something that I like,” she said.

Nickel also expressed a similar appreciation for the inclusivity and celebration she thought the drag show fostered. 

“In the midst of the way the world is right now, they still get to be who they are, and they’re still welcomed here at Goshen,” Nickel said of the professional drag queens. “And, beyond that … the students have a place where they can celebrate queerness and be who they are.”

Hershberger’s words echoed Nickel’s sentiments. “I don’t think that I have been able to be that confident … in so many years,” he said. “I feel like I can be myself more and that I don’t have to worry about what others are thinking.”

The professional drag queens were also thankful for the opportunity to perform. “I’m always so overwhelmed by your support,” Xtravangaza told the audience during the show. “I can’t tell you how much it means to all of us.”