BATON ROUGE, La.—Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance performance hailing from New York, produces an outsized reaction from its audiences, perhaps because it goes beyond its stunning stage effects to a deeper human need.

Leonard Kight, retired Air Force colonel and his wife Linda attended the April 9 matinee.

“It was spellbinding. I literally cried through most of it,“ said Mrs. Kight. ”The beauty, the music, the dancing is superb, it’s even better than I had seen advertised. It’s one of the most wonderful performances that I have ever witnessed, and I would tell everybody this is absolutely a must-see. An experience, you don’t just see it, it touches all of your senses. The sights, the sounds, and just what it does to your very being—it’s beautiful.”

“It’s something that goes beyond your eyes and your ears, it’s just something that goes deep into your spirit. It’s just a feeling when I left, I feel like I’m floating.”

“The performers did so well,” she said. “They’re just perfectionists and we just enjoyed it so much, it’s spiritual. It touches you deep inside. And the history of China, they bring out things that are going on, it’s just hard to describe. It’s more than a performance.”

Shen Yun highlights the piety and reverence Chinese people have traditionally shown toward the divine, and the unfortunate realities of religious persecution taking place in today’s China. For this reason, Shen Yun cannot be performed in Mainland China.

“The China that used to be—that needs to come back, needs to be rebirthed,” said Mr. Kight. He sees hope in Shen Yun’s simple message. “Get back to the basics. Back to the spiritual that was so prevalent in all of it and just get back to humanity. And taking care of each other and just being one.”

Pastor Bruce Klain and psychotherapist Dana Klain have some experience with the state of religious suppression under the Chinese Communist Party.

“We lived in China—in Xinjiang Province, and I was a professor at the university,” said Mr. Klain. “I taught history, I taught English, I taught business, I was a missionary over there, ...  so to have that experience, and my wife and I went to Xi’an a couple of years ago and in Xi’an we taught in an underground Bible college in China.”

Mrs. Klain reflected on the couple’s observations while in China.

“I think in China it always depends on the government, unfortunately, but I do think the spirit of the people, no matter what the government does, it lives on,” she said. “We know that the people and the government are two different things. And I always believed that everywhere you go people are the same, basically they’re good. Sometimes the situation is not easy.”

But she felt that Shen Yun offered a positive and uplifting example of a way forward despite the difficulties.

“I thought it was a very positive message of people struggling to find an identity that has gotten lost,” she said.

Reporting by NTD and Sally Sun.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.