Featured Artist: Flor De Liz Perez

This is a series of posts featuring our artists who are making things happen in and around our great borough of Queens.  Please check back weekly for new posts.

TitleOccupation
Actress, Writer/Performer with the NY Neo-Futurists

Where were you born?
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. I came here when I was five and was raised in Jamaica Estates, Queens until moving away to upstate NY for middle school. There were a lot more stops along the way, including schooling in PA and NC, but the road always leads back to Queens! (More on that in the next few answers).

Which Queens neighborhood do you live in and for how long?
I live in Astoria now (again). I moved to Astoria after grad school and lived here for a year. Then I migrated to Greenpoint, BK for about 6 months, after which I came back to Astoria, where I’ve been ever since (this leg of the journey is going on 2 years).

How did you get involved in theater?
It started with storytelling. My mom was really into reading and telling me stories when I was a kid. When we started doing plays in elementary school (P.S. 131 in Jamaica Estates, Queens), I discovered such joy in acting out stories and getting to be different characters (my favorite roles included a piranha and a penguin). I continued cherishing written stories and found more and more ways into performance as I grew.

However, it wasn’t until college when I decided that I wanted to dedicate myself to the theatre as a profession. I majored in English Lit and Theatre, and studied abroad in London for a semester at the London Dramatic Academy. There, I was infused with a new appreciation for what being a theatre artist in the world meant.

Being in a culture where theatre was viewed as an essential part of society; and seeing how my teachers, who were working actors and theatre-makers themselves, had created lives rich in creativity, community, action, dedication to the craft, social consciousness and citizenry inspired me.

I knew then that I wanted to be a part of the theatre in some form for the rest of my life.

What do you love most about Queens?
I ADORE the wide range of neighborhoods, diversity, people, FOOD! Every nook and cranny of Queens offers a different experience.

Also, Queens=family! My mother grew up in Corona, Jackson Heights (off the Junction Blvd stop) with her brothers and mother. A lot of her family came through Jackson Heights upon arriving from Dominican Republic in the 50s/60s. My uncles actually still live in the house they were raised in with my mother! They made it a split-level, so one is on the first floor with his family, the other on the second floor with his family. So my cousins, aunts, uncles and abuela are all in one place! I knew I always had a home there.