She emphasized that freedom of expression is important “in today’s world, in China in particular, but even to some extent even in the United States. It was pretty powerful to me. We have to be careful.”

Noticing that the matinee performance boasted a full house, Mr. Davis observed that there are many people looking for truth.

“It was definitely spiritual and it crossed the boundary of just being a Christian. It was more of a universal spiritual appeal and I think that applied to the freedom aspect too,” Ms. Davis said.

Understanding that Shen Yun is censored in China, Ms. Davis was again reminded of the importance of freedom.

“You can probably apply it in any country and I think it speaks of the importance of talking about the past and making sure that these stifling of freedoms or taking away those freedoms ... doesn’t happen again. I mean especially not right now, but the truth is it is happening in some places,” she said.

With the pandemic impacting the world, Ms. Davis feels that experiencing Shen Yun has told her that this freedom was even more crucial than before.

“I think at any time it has great value, but I think so even more so during the pandemic because it reminds you that we are all people and when you see that spiritual message that crosses boundaries of countries and things like that it reminds you of all the things we have in common as human beings and the things we need to value as human beings all as one,” she said.

“I think anything you can do that reminds us of the humanity in each other gives us a little hope that we’ll start to get beyond all this divisiveness, whether it’s in this country or in the world, because people are really hurting right now,” Ms. David said.