CEO: Shen Yun Is ‘Fabulous’

OGDEN, Utah—”It’s fabulous,” said David Derrick, after watching Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company with his wife, Marsha. The couple saw opening performance of the company’s stop in Ogden on March 12 at The Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts.

Mr. Derrick is Chairman of the Board and CEO of ActiveCare Inc., and before that he served in the same capacity as SecureAlert Inc., a company he founded. He has been a principal financier and driving force in many new businesses, according to Businessweek.

Shen Yun has been a driving force in its own right. “In 2006, a group of leading classical Chinese artists came together in New York with one wish: to revive the true, divinely inspired culture of China and share it with the world,” the company’s website explains.

“It gave you a sense of the heritage and the culture of China, and I thought the way they portrayed it was very well done,” Mr. Derrick said.

In the few years since 2006, Shen Yun’s one company has grown to three and all tour the globe simultaneously to bring classical Chinese dance and music to audiences in over a hundred cities.

Mr. Derrick enjoyed every aspect of the performance, saying, “It was very well done. I love the dancing.” He mentioned in particular enjoying the difficult technical aspects of the dancing.

Classical Chinese dance trains in both physical expression and postures, as well as the more dazzling leaps, flips, spins and other difficult tumbling techniques.

“It was beautiful,” Mrs. Derrick said. She spoke especially of a dance performance called Ancient Elegance, in which, according to the program notes, fairies “glide like whispers on the wind, skillfully spinning with long silken sleeves.”

“I loved the sleeves and all the things that they could do. It just touched so many dimensions,” she said.

She also enjoyed the digitally animated backdrops that bring audiences to celestial palaces in one dance and broad plateaus in another. “That was beautiful—the screen and the way they would, all of a sudden, come onto the floor. It was very, very well done,” she said.

Mrs. Derrick was referring to the animated figures that appear on the screen and then magically appear onstage as live performers.

Both the Derricks felt the show was unique and unusual and for that reason it would interest their friends.

“It was a great experience,” Mr. Derrick said.

Reporting by Youzhi Ma and Sharon Kilarski.

New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has three touring companies that perform simultaneously around the world. Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company is scheduled to perform at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts, Las Vegas, March 15–17. For more information, visit ShenYunPerformingArts.org

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