About this Artist

Pronouns: she/her

Hua Hua Zhang graduated from the Beijing Performing Arts Academy where she was trained as a performer in the ancient art of Chinese puppetry. From 1974 to 1995 she toured nationally and internationally with the China Puppet Arts Troupe of Beijing. She received many awards for excellence in performance and direction.

Hua Hua formed her nonprofit company — Hua Hua’s Visual Expressions — to continue to develop her visions of the performing arts and to develop an art education program to share Chinese culture and puppet art with American audiences and students. Since 2000, the company has mounted four productions which have toured throughout the United States: The Bell, a site mounted production using local artists, which premiered at The University of Connecticut; East Meets West, a family-oriented production which has been performed in numerous venues including The Smithsonian Discovery Theater in Washington, D.C., The Boston Children’s Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, and many schools and local theatres; and Butterfly Dreams, a mature audience production which premiered at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and has been performed at La Mama E.T.C. in New York and, in 2003, the show was presented at The Worldwide Festival of Puppet Theatre in Charleville-Mezieres, France.

Artist Statement

“Art is a nation’s most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal ourselves and to others the inner vision which guides us as a nation.” —Lyndon Johnson on signing into existence the National Endowment of the Arts