CLAREMONT, Calif.—As a professor of kinesiology Tona Wilson knows all about movement. And the movement she saw within Shen Yun Performing Arts was divine.

“It’s just, it’s so different and it’s 5,000 years old, and we lose things, and we realize that, at the end, we realize that gosh we’ve lost a lot of work. We need to remember just being kind to one another, remembering that there is a Creator, you know we’ve got a job here, don’t lose sight, love one another,” Wilson said of Shen Yun after seeing a performance for the first time at the Bridges Auditorium on April 6.

Wilson had wanted to see Shen Yun for over a decade. The company was formed in New York in 2006 to revive the divinely inspired culture of ancient China, taking the name Shen Yun, which means “the beauty of divine beings dancing.”

“I’ve wanted to watch it since then. It came out and just like I’ve got to see this, I’ve got to see this, I never got to see this. Finally, I bought myself a ticket,” Wilson said.

Wilson found in Shen Yun a spiritual journey. She described the awe-inspiring opening, the establishing of a 5,000-year-old ancient civilization built on the belief in the divine, with vignettes of dance and music that brought the story to the present day.

The finale really hit home, she said, a little reminder that we’ve lost ourselves, and “need to get our things in order here on Earth so that you can make it to Heaven.”

“That was the big takeaway for me,” Wilson said.

And the experience was all the more inspiring because of its beauty.

“Oh my gosh, the costumes---I love to watch ballet, and I love to watch dance and I love to watch theater, and these are the most ornate, and colorful, and just attention-getting, mesmerizing costumes I’ve ever seen,” Wilson said.

“It was just mesmerizing. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of it.”

“And friends who have seen it at larger venues say that it’s even more amazing at larger venues. So next time they’re here, I’m going to a larger venue,” Wilson said.