WASHINGTON, D.C.—Shen Yun Performing Arts took to the stage at the nation’s capital for the fourth time this season on Jan. 27, and showed audience members something they had never seen before.

Jill Schigley, a technical writer and editor with the Navy, said the performance “was just absolutely fantastic.”

Mari Vaattovaara, professor and Director of the Institute of Urban and Regional Studies in Finland, said Shen Yun was “one of a kind.”

“I think it’s marvelous,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. I enjoyed every possible second. I think it brought us to a world that I didn’t know that would exist.”

“I think the visual, the physical, the cultural, the beauty and the colors, they all were something that I’m just so amazed of. I don’t know where I am at this moment. One of the most beautiful performances I’ve ever seen in my life,” Ms. Vaattovaara said. She spoke highly of Shen Yun’s talents, and how the designers and performers had created a backdrop in which the imaginary world merged with the here and now, allowing the dancers on stage to appear on screen one moment and on stage the next.

“It’s definitely energy. It’s cultural history. It’s the world of beauty in the global world. It’s something quite unique. I think it’s way more than dancing,” she said.

“I think it was very sensitive. I think it was very emotional. It was very, as I said, visual. And through all those possible emotions, I think it’s opening a world that I’m gaining more of interest,” Ms. Vaattovaara said. It made her want to study history and culture, things she hadn’t done in some time.

“And read to understand and respect and value the things that we just saw during the last one and a half hours. Just wonderful,” she said.

The experience was a first in her lifetime.

“Something that I’ve never seen,” she said. “Unseen, unfelt. Especially coming from where we are coming from. ... It brings all the possible senses together. I’m really astonished.”