Photo by Jane Sovell Southwest Minnesota State University hosted an International Gala Friday night, celebrating cultural backgrounds with several performances.

MARSHALL — A crowd packed the Southwest Minnesota State University upper conference center on Friday night to enjoy international cuisine, entertainment, a fashion show and a dance party to celebrate a range of cultures.

SMSU hosted this year’s International Gala.

“It was awesome, we had such a good time,” said Jamie Leonard, SMSU office and administrative specialist for the Center for International Education said. “We had a full house, definitely.”

Leonard noted that the event sold out, selling just over 230 tickets, welcoming students and community members in to enjoy a night of cultural celebration.

“We had a wonderful meal with some local international cuisine,” Leonard added.

There were 10 different performances throughout the event, adding to the fun of the night.

“We had dancers from Bangladesh and Nepal,” Leonard said. “We had some younger dancers from the Hmong community, like little ones through high schoolers, and they were adorable. We had, she’s actually one of our student workers in our office from Taiwan, she sang a Taiwanese song for us.”

“We had Sam Jeffrey, who performs around, he was our domestic artist who plays guitars and sings,” Leonard added. “We had our Himalayan dance, students from Nepal who played guitar and sang, and we had a drummer for that. We had our Mandarin Chinese class, our professor from Taiwan who’s teaching Mandarin and Chinese class, sang a song in Mandarin for us.”

Following the performances, event-goers also got to enjoy the fashion show.

“We always have a fashion show where people wear their cultural clothes, and do a little catwalk,” Leonard said. “Then, we just have a dance party for all the students after the end of everything, so they get to enjoy.”

The gala was the final event of International Education Week, where SMSU hosted a variety of experiences throughout last week.