SACRAMENTO, Calif.—For sisters Pamela Kotalik and Roxie Meng, watching Shen Yun Performing Arts brought them a special connection to their mother, whom the sisters recently lost.

Sitting in the Sacramento Community Center Theater Tuesday evening, Ms. Kotalik said she felt her mother speaking to her, saying “‘It’s better here in heaven,’” she said. For her sister, it brought an uplifting and happy memory.

“It just feels like home to me,” said Ms. Kotalik, owner of food decorating company Creative Designs. Ms. Kotalik said the feelings were indescribable, but watching Shen Yun, she almost felt reminded of a past life.

“I think the beauty and the serenity, the way the history ... and their graciousness,” Ms. Kotalik said. “It embodies so many things. There’s so much there. There’s a story there that’s deeper than a lot of people see.”

Based in New York, Shen Yun was established by artists from around the world in 2006 to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization through the performing arts.

Through the art and the technique, Ms. Kotalik said, the feelings of the performers had resonated with her.

Classical Chinese dance has been passed down through thousands of years, soaking up wisdom from every dynasty and becoming a vast and independent system of dance. In addition to form and technique, classical Chinese dance emphasizes bearing, or the “inner spirit,” thus allowing the form to be richly expressive.

For the sisters, the dancers’ spirits really came through.

“The emotion—what they put into it, the passion ... with that many performers out there, all doing the same thing, they’ve got to be feeling that same emotion to be able to perform that way,” Ms. Meng said.

Ms. Meng’s daughter was a dancer as well. Having watched her practice and perform through the years, Ms. Meng said she knew how much passion the performers must have.

“It’s really intriguing, and you try to see the whole history of it, the choreography and the movements and the gracefulness,” Ms. Meng said. “Unbelievable.”

Ms. Kotalik said she would sum up the experience in a word: “Magnificence!”

“It resonates a lot of feeling and emotion, and history,” Ms. Kotalik said.

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has four touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. For more information, visit Shen Yun Performing Arts.

The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yun’s inception in 2006.