ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—Patrick Lacourse, a manager, and his wife had been wanting to watch Shen Yun Performing Arts for the past decade, and on May 5, their wish finally came true when they saw the performance at the Duke Energy Center for the Arts—Mahaffey Theater.

“I think the show was wonderful. There was a lot of energy,” Mr. Lacourse said. “Very well done, [well] choreographed. I mean, it was flawless. You can’t top it, very good experience.”

Shen Yun currently has eight equally sized companies that tour the world simultaneously, delighting audiences in over 200 cities across more than 20 countries and spanning five continents.

“The way they handle themselves was just flawless,” he said. “They were unbelievable. Their timing was perfect. Obviously, they are dedicated to this project. I mean, you don’t just do that by accident. There’s a lot of work and a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes to make it look as easy as they made it look, and they did make it look easy.”

“Part of what’s going on in this country [is that] people have lost track of values,” he said. “And so to come back and get back to your core, your values, that’s very important.”