“It’s extraordinary. I’d heard about it, and I’m not disappointed at all. It’s magnificent,” exclaims Jean-Loup Bernard, who runs a chemical company with his wife in the Limousin region that uses primarily organic materials.

“I think the actors are incredibly brave, and their stories are truly moving,” he said. “The quality is incredible—it’s a real revelation.”

Shen Yun Performing Arts is an international dance and music company that showcases the richness and beauty of traditional Chinese culture through artistic and visually stunning performances.

“I’d never heard of China in this way before. It’s not the image we usually get,” said Mr. Bernard. “You get a sense of something very, very strong—a country with values worth defending, a country that is deeply appreciated.”

“Yun” refers to the inner grace and spiritual expression that an artist conveys through their movements—something that Jean-Loup Bernard clearly sensed.

“You can tell right away,” he said before explaining what he had noticed. “There’s an incredible sense of commitment. You can really feel it.”

The name Shen Yun can be translated as “the beauty of divine beings dancing.”

“It’s completely woven into the dance,” Mr. Bernard said. “It’s a spiritual performance; it’s very beautiful.”

For the business executive, Shen Yun conveys a message that he describes as beautiful: “Accepting others as they are, recognizing that we are all very different, and discovering each other’s origins.”

Feeling soothed by this performance, which “did him good” after the first act, Mr. Bernard had only one thing on his mind during intermission: seeing the second act of the play.

“I’m really looking forward to the second half,” he said during intermission. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s wonderful to see such great shows,” said Bernard Jouhanneaud, a company manager.

“The show is beautiful. I thought the young women were stunning. Plus, the colors are absolutely extraordinary,” he said.

“The dancers are excellent, with a rare flexibility,” he said. “And I really liked the baritone because it’s very poetic.”

Mr. Jouhanneaud particularly enjoyed the “ethnic dance of the Mongolian men,” the final scene just before intermission. In this dance, Mongolian nomadic horsemen perform movements that mimic horseback riding and falconry on the vast northern plains.

According to Bernard Jouhanneaud, Shen Yun “brings to light the history of China, which is largely unknown in the West. And there are certainly many wonderful things in the East that we can learn from and emulate.”

“It feels as though these are divine dances. In fact, Shen Yun—if I understand correctly—features divine beings dancing,” Mr. Jouhanneaud observes, quite rightly. “It’s quite moving, of course.”

Overall, he found the show “very pleasing to the eye and very harmonious.”