A variety of student performers will celebrate drag and their ethnicities at the International Drag Show.
An amateur drag show at Ohio University is about to be even more colorful and inclusive by featuring student performers from across the world.
The Ohio Global Studies Union and the LGBT Center are partnering up to host an International Drag Show in Walter Hall Rotunda to celebrate the intersection of LGBT and international identity in an entertaining way.
Bennett Eighinger, president of the Ohio Global Student Union, said she spoke with delfin bautista, the director of the LGBT Center, last year about this idea on a collaboration, because the center has never had an international student walk in to visit.
“It’s a drag show, but it’s more geared towards an international audience as well as geared more towards international performances,” Reiju Nemoto, the president of the Japanese Students Association, said.
Since the Ohio Global Studies Union is a part of the International Student Union, the organization decided to connect both the LGBT Center and ISU in attempt to “bridge the gap,” Eighinger said.
“There are unique challenges of being LGBTQ identified in other countries, there is also much resilience and celebration,” bautista said in an email. “Our movement is vibrant, and we need to recognize all aspects of it from struggle to fierceness.”
The drag show will be catered by Fusion Noodle Company and will feature a variety of performers. There will also be a chance for audience members to dance and to perform karaoke after the performances are over, Eighinger said.
The center is trying to help provide guidance to the Ohio Global Student Union about how to run a drag show by helping them gather props, decorations and makeup, Sam Haug, a student staff member of the LGBT Center and who uses they/them pronouns, said.
Performers, Eighinger said, range from students from the LGBT Center, someone from the School of Theater and the Japanese Student Association.
“Some of the benefits that come from the joint effort is expanding the knowledge of those who come from countries and cultures where LGBT issues and people aren’t as prominent or as well known or accepted,” Haug, a junior studying wildlife and conservation biology and global studies war and peace, said.
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Haug said they hope people learn about what international drag culture is and what it represents.
delfin, who uses they/them pronouns and the lowercase spelling of their name, said hosting a drag show with an international focus shows how the center is dedicated to diversity and educating domestic students on understanding how those from other countries can share LGBTQ and drag stories from their countries.
“As we discuss gender and sexuality it's important for us to remember that how these identities are discussed in the USA is not always the same in other countries,” bautista said. “It's important to foster moments when folks can share across boundaries, be it in the classroom or through the fab of drag.”
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