BERKELEY, Calif.—Bob Nass, a retired minister, and his wife Christy watched Shen Yun Performing Arts for the first time at the Zellerbach Hall on Jan. 14.

“I was totally amazed with the video in the back, the animation,” said Mr. Nass. “The animation is phenomenal. It’s absolutely outstanding.”

Since its inception, Shen Yun has expanded from one to eight equally sized companies that tour the world simultaneously, reviving traditional Chinese culture and showcasing the beauty of China before communism.

Before the Chinese Communist Party seized power and enforced its own atheist ideologies, China was known as “the land of the divine,” and its people believed that Chinese culture was a gift from the heavens.

As Christians, Mr. and Mrs. Nass approved of the return to tradition and the divine that Shen Yun’s performance urged.

“If you don’t have the creator as your foundation, you have nothing,” added Mrs. Nass. “I love the fact that the creator was brought in because you don’t see that in hardly anything around our country anymore.”

Shen Yun’s opening piece depicts divine beings who follow the creator down to Earth to establish Chinese civilization.

“Music [is] so much a part of our culture,” she said. “Harmonious music brings peace, and harmonious art brings peace. We don’t have a lot of that nowadays.”

Also in the audience was Jon Corshen, a technical consultant.

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Mr. Corshen. “The precision of the dance is really unbelievable, and it’s just amazing how hard they must work to get to that level of performance.”

Mr. Corshen expressed his appreciation for the connection the Chinese had with the divine.

“I’m always impressed when people have given their life to training to create something beautiful,” he said. “It’s a very meaningful sharing of the work that they’ve put in, so when you see … prodigy level dancers and amazing musicians, and they’ve worked so hard to get it and then share it with you, I think that’s very rare, and so it’s appreciated.”