LONDON, U.K.—Paula Wan, a retired hairdresser, traveled from Leicestershire to London to see Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Eventim Apollo on April 15.

Based in New York, Shen Yun was founded in 2006 and is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company. Now with eight equally sized companies touring the world simultaneously, Shen Yun’s mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture and to give its audiences a glimpse of pre-communist China.

Although Ms. Wan has lived in the UK since she was a child, her mother and brother are still in Hong Kong. Ms. Wan praised Shen Yun’s mission, and expressed her concerns about the lack of freedom of speech in China.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Ms. Wan said of Shen Yun’s mission. “I think it’s very brave because we all need to know suffering. For many traditions, many nationalities and … China, we’re still suffering.”

“I’m very glad I don’t have a young family in Hong Kong at the moment because of the [lack of] freedom of speech,” Ms. Wan added.

“There’s somebody who has a strong moral belief, to better the world and to make society better, and there are people out there trying to suppress this kind of belief,” said Ms. Wan.

“I think the Chinese people would love this,” she said. “We all want the truth, don’t we? We all want to practice gratitude and we’re here to look after each other, to make everybody much better.”

“I think it’s fantastic,” said Ms. Wan. “I’m watching and I thought … it’s like losing yourself in a fairy tale. For times when we have a little bit of difficulty, things like this give us hope and we can just enjoy something that gives us a different dimension.”

“It is fantastic how they wrote and put this together.”