Tang Dayu, born 1945, studied Jingju opera at the Chengdu Drama School and was selected for the Jingju Opera Institute in Beijing. She worked as a Jingju actress (1962-1972), was appointed to the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Culture in 1982, and later became Director of the Chengdu Puppetry and Shadow Art Theatre. Tang Dayu played the principal role in more than twenty plays, imbuing her roles with speciality items such as “face changing” and “fire spitting”, skills she learned from her training with actors performing such stunts in Sichuan opera, acts which she then transferred to puppet theatre. Several of her shows were awarded national prizes. She was the first President and General Secretary of China Puppetry and Shadow Association and UNIMA China, and Vice-President of the Chengdu Dramatist Association. Since 2012, she is the President of UNIMA International’s Asia-Pacific Commission.