MIAMI—Shen Yun Performing Arts brightened the day for the audience at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on March 15. Anthony and Berenice Leombruno enjoyed the performance immensely.

Mrs. Leombruno said it was her first time seeing Shen Yun. “It’s absolutely beautiful. I mean, the costumes, the dance, the choreography. It’s just lovely.”

Today, people who practice Falun Dafa are persecuted and killed so the communist regime can harvest their organs. “The Steadfast Heart” tells such a story through music and dance.

This piece touched Mrs. Leombruno. “We saw it, how beautiful everything was before communism showed up and started ruin [Chinese culture]. I’m Cuban, so I understand.”

According to the program, “It tells of people who practice Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong), the meditation discipline guided by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. … In 1999, the communist regime, fearing the practice’s popularity, launched a  brutal campaign to wipe it out.”

“It showed the difference when the soldiers came in with the black and the red markings. Everything changed, and the mom almost lost her son. That was really beautiful. I got a little emotional,” Mrs. Leombruno said.

Shen Yun’s mission is to revive 5,000 years of traditional culture of China before communism. The performers train at Fei Tian Academy in Upstate New York to perfect their skills in classical Chinese dance.

Mrs. Leombruno, owner of a metal recycling waste management company, found the movements amazing. “It looks almost impossible to do. It looks very, very difficult. They definitely practice a lot, but it’s just beautiful. The whole Chinese culture is beautiful,” she said.

She has a family connection to China’s culture. “My great-grandmother on my mother’s side is Chinese, so we brought my mom for her 79th birthday today; she’s obsessed with [traditional Chinese] culture.”

Mr. Leombruno, a sales executive, said, “ I’m enjoying it. I didn’t know what to expect, but it’s very entertaining.”

Shen Yun features a patented digital backdrop that interacts with the performers as they jump in and out of the landscape on the screen. Mr. Leombruno said, “ It’s beautiful, the backdrop. I think that’s cool. I’ve never seen this before.”

Mrs. Leombruno thought the costumes, especially those in the “Water Sleeves” dance, were “magical.”

Traditional Chinese culture carries valuable lessons and spiritual values. “The message I’m seeing is that everything is so beautiful and peaceful. Then when the [communist] government got involved, it became bad,” she said.

Mrs. Leombruno said she would definitely recommend Shen Yun to others. “I want to tell all my friends because it was just beautiful. It’s a very strong message, but on top of that, it also has the costumes and the culture, and they made it so much more entertaining.”