Korean puppeteer. After studying French at Ewha Womans University (1981), Yim Jong-mi entered the Conservatoire Nationale (National Conservatory) in Rennes, France, where she studied puppet theatre (1984).

Yim Jong-mi gave her first performance at Rennes, La Voix (The Voice, 1984), and toured kindergartens. During the summer of 1984, she participated in the 14th UNIMA World Puppetry Festival in Dresden and played in Yangju Byulsandae with Orit-Kwangdae (also written Eolit Gwangdae) puppet theatre company founded by Lee Kyung-hee (Yi Gyeong-hee). Returning the same year to South Korea, she was named Director of Saemto Parangsae (Blue Bird) Theatre and rejoined the puppet theatre Rang-rang of Mrs Kim Ock-rang. She founded the educational theatre company Sadari (Ladder).  

Yim Jong-mi has organized a great number of workshops and seminars since 1986, notably the lectures on the arts at the National Theatre of Korea, drama classes for children at the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), and at the Kyemong Cultural Center, workshops for nursery school teachers, conferences and lectures at the Teacher’s Society for Drama Education. Yim Jong-mi is an assistant teacher at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.

(See Korea.)