NEW YORK CITY—Jorge Pallo, a television and film actor, saw Shen Yun Performing Arts on April 5 at The David H. Koch Theater.

“It seemed there were a lot of heroes involved. I love the story of heroes overcoming injustice,” Mr. Pallo said.

Shen Yun’s artists are trained in classical Chinese dance, one of the most comprehensive dance systems in the world.

“The performers were all very much in sync,” Mr. Pallo said.

He loved the “Water Sleeves” dance.

“That was beautiful to watch and so mesmerizing at the same time.”

“All theater is meant to hold up a mirror to life. And if it gets censored, then there will be a problem,” Mr. Pallo said.

“I think faith takes a tremendous amount of courage. … Courage is also having fear but doing it anyway and expressing yourself in a magical and artistic way, as we are meant to be,” he said.

Under the communist regime in China, this expression is smothered. Mr. Pallo believes that this type of egalitarian ideology kills creativity.

“If everybody is the same and if everybody is uniform, then where does the creation go? Where does creativity go? And then we all just become robots listening to the government,” he said.

Shen Yun’s use of its digital backdrop is patented. The versatility of the technology allows the set to change scenes in the blink of an eye, giving the stage endless possibilities.