EL PASO, Texas—Sarah Loveless, a speech therapist, and Tim Burdan, a government teacher, watched Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Plaza Theatre on Feb 15. Ms. Loveless, a former dancer, had seen Shen Yun once before, but it was the first time she shared the experience with her boyfriend.

“It’s a beautiful show,” she said. “Everyone’s amazing. The music’s wonderful, and everyone’s really talented.”

“I think it’s really incredible how they’re trying to maintain a lot of the culture that was taken away after the communist regime came into China,” he said. “I feel sad that a lot of that culture isn’t present anymore, that that’s not able to be expressed over there. And so I think it’s really great that they’re spreading it in other parts of the world, to be able to keep it alive.”

Mr. Burdan described Shen Yun’s dancers as “incredible, some of the best of the best.”

“I’ve never seen something so well, so professional, and so well done and so much energy,” he said. “To do this for two hours, that takes a lot.”