MELBOURNE, Australia—Their long sleeves flowed like water as the costumed female dancers of Shen Yun Performing Arts appeared to float across the stage. Lisa Gentile, who has designed clothing for 40 years, said the colors of the costumes made her feel “really happy” when she saw the production with her husband at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on March 13.

Smoke billowed offstage during the opening act as Shen Yun portrayed its heavenly myth of creation. The program then rolled out a retelling of ancient Chinese tales up through history, right through to the present day, when communists rule the Middle Kingdom.

This New York-based dance company bills itself as “China before communism.” Five thousand years of ancient culture were “almost lost” during China’s devastating cultural revolution in the mid-1960s, the group states on its website, but Shen Yun is on a mission to keep it alive.

“I love the flow. And the colors are amazing,” Ms. Gentile told The Epoch Times, speaking in the theater after the show. “They’re beautiful and very calming.”

Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, Shen Yun has toured the world with ambitions to start a Chinese cultural renaissance, though the dance company has been banned by the communist party from performing in mainland China. Many members of Shen Yun practice Falun Dafa, a belief system banned in their homeland, while some of them even escaped religious persecution and went to America for freedom.

Gentile said she could feel the passion behind what they do onstage. “It’s very spiritual the way they dance, it’s not just a performance,” she said. “You can see that they’re actually feeling it while they’re dancing.”

While enjoying the performance, many theatergoers sympathized with Shen Yun’s mission to restore ancient Chinese culture.

Ivan Brooks, a software tester who attended the performance on Friday, said, “It’s sad to hear that people have been trying to remove it and suppress it and eradicate it. Such beautiful culture should not be eradicated. The skills of the dancers and the performers are amazing.”

Shen Yun’s dancers have trained in an art form that goes back thousands of years. The onstage hosts offered audience members a crash course on classical Chinese dance, an ancient style that originated from martial arts long ago. Today, many modern styles, including gymnastics, have borrowed these moves, though they came from classical Chinese dance.

But behind all the technical skill, the artists are driven to revive Chinese spirituality. Religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism were systematically dismantled by the officially atheist Chinese Communist Party, as were the morals of pre-communist eras. Today, their faith has also become a target.

Shen Yun has responded by placing spirituality and universal values on a pedestal. And that resonated with theatergoers here in Melbourne.

“We found [Shen Yun] very much in line with what God wants man to be,” said Mr. Brooks’s mother, Laura, who watched the show with her son.

And that is “to be kind and tolerant and loving,” he added.