CINCINNATI—Attorney Mike Riley and his wife Helga Riley saw Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinnati on Jan. 29.

“I thought it was beautiful … breathtaking,” said Mr. Riley. “I really appreciate the theme and the material presented.”

“Everyone should come see it!” he said.

“The whole show was just very impressive,” she said, “It was much more than I'd expected actually … I was very, very impressed.”

“The talent, the complexity of the dancers, the costumes … the orchestration … and the piano—it was just fantastic,” she said.

Shen Yun’s mission is to revive China’s 5,000-year-old traditional culture. The age-old culture has been on the brink of extinction since the Chinese communist regime seized power in 1949. Shen Yun says its performance demonstrates “China before communism.”

“It was very comforting to see the show,” said Mr. Riley. “It impressed me that the values, the old values in China, correspond very closely with what I consider to be the proper values.”

“It was apparent in the songs where they talk about the Creator … and that relates to our moral values here,” he added.

“Of course, that is quite different to what is in communist China today, and so it’s very impressive to see this because I know [Shen Yun] faces a big headwind in putting something together like this … I think it’s great!”