HOUSTON—People who love history can see beauty in Shen Yun’s presentation of true traditional Chinese culture. History teachers Michelle Balliet and Wallace Zimmerman were struck by the stunning qualities of the performance.

“It’s just stunningly beautiful. It always does make me get very emotional, teary-eyed, because you can feel the beauty. And it allows you to breathe away all the stress of the world and the chaos that’s going on. You could just relax and just be in awe of it. It always holds me in awe,” said Ms. Balliet.

“It was beautiful. It was so much fun to watch. It was very exciting,” said Mr. Zimmerman.

“It was amazing to watch all of the acrobatics in the traditional Chinese dance,” said Mr. Zimmerman.

“I definitely love the ethnic dances. I even love the name of Shen Yun,” said Ms. Balliet.

According to Shen Yun’s website, the name “Shen Yun” means the beauty of divine beings dancing.

This was Mr. Zimmerman’s first time seeing Shen Yun. He shared that he was struck by the way Shen Yun depicted present-day China.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect. This is my first time. But to see the one dance where they were in the prison, that was very powerful,” he said.

“Communism takes your rights away, and it threatens your freedom. And with it brings death [and] persecution,” said Ms. Balliet.

“A lot of American youth think for some reason that communism is a good thing. I find that very alarming actually because if [they] only knew the history about how it takes away the rights of people; government control; government property, and if you were to try to protest, you'd be in trouble for it,” she expressed.

“I was really surprised in a good way. This needs to be told—how communism takes away your tradition, takes away the history of your culture. The whole story-line about returning to the heavens; returning to the divine essence of one’s being—that journey is very beautiful,” said Ms. Balliet.