While many people are hesitant about attending big events because of the pandemic, Janet declared that she was not in the least worried, saying, “I’m not worried about the pandemic at all.”

Together with her husband Andrew, they watched Shen Yun at The Benedum Center for the Performing Arts in Pittsburgh.

For Mr. Kirk, the pandemic was something you had to learn to live with.

Ms. Kirk, a managing director and financial adviser, described her experience.

She had been inspired by the dance “Plum Blossoms in Spring.”

“It’s just absolutely fabulous! The plum blossoms were amazing! They’re just absolutely spectacular,”  she said.

While the company presents many ancient stories, it also portrays, through dance, human rights abuses carried out today by the Chinese communist regime.

Neither of them were daunted by the prospect of the pandemic.

“The pandemic was over,” said Ms. Hassenfeldt, “It is just a common cold now.”

“It’s worth to come and see the performance …  but to live in fear of, what again, we think is not at this point in time, severe,” should not be a reason to deter people from seeing Shen Yun, said Mr. Hassenfeldt.

“Oh! It’s beautiful. It’s absolutely amazing. This is our first time seeing it, and I’m very impressed,” Ms. Hassenfeldt said.

She summed up the essence of Shen Yun.

“[It’s about] tradition and freedom—the lesson is there,’ she said.

“My grandparents were born in China, and they came over to the United States and so my grandmother never went back to China because of the communism …  the freedoms we have today really speak to me,” she said.

She had been gifted tickets to see Shen Yun by two of her students.

“I absolutely loved it,” Ms. Gingras-Roy said.

“I see elegance and [the movements are] very delicate. All the movements are just really gorgeous. They’re so synchronized … I can tell they work really hard to be together,” Ms. Gingras-Roy said.