SALFORD, United Kingdom—Through the medium of classical Chinese dance, Shen Yun artists bring to life tales from ancient times to the modern day.

Caroline Griffiths, who watched the performance at The Lowry Salford, on April 18, described the dancing as fantastic, and said she felt light and happy while watching their movements.

“You wish that you could dance like that,” said Griffiths, a chiropractor who owns her own clinic near Manchester.

Dating back thousands of years, classical Chinese dance is one of the most expressive art forms in the world, and carries the values of ancient Chinese culture—a culture that was almost wiped out under communist rule.

Griffiths was struck by the stories that portrayed modern-day China.

One of those, called “Goodness in the Face of Evil,” is about practitioners of Falun Dafa, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted in China since the late 1990s. In the piece, a girl who practices Falun Dafa is jailed and subjected to forced organ harvesting. But in the end, her goodness triumphs over evil.

“It’s something that most people don’t know about, so to find out about the darker side is very enlightening for us in the West,” Griffiths said. “In this country we take it for granted because we can express our opinions and follow whatever religion we like, but it is a different story in China.”

She added, “It’s better that the whole world knows what’s going on.”

Formed in 2006, Shen Yun Performing Arts seek to revive the almost-destroyed 5,000 years of divinely inspired Chinese culture and share it with the world. Griffiths agreed that this mission was good.

“You need to be able to express your religious beliefs or feelings of kindness and goodness and not be frightened to do that,” she said, hoping that Shen Yun’s performances could bring about positive change in the world.

There were two curtain calls at the April 18 performance at The Lowry Salford. Shen Yun has six companies that tour the world simultaneously.