"I'm doing a flip off the boat," said Jarrel Phillips, breaking down last year's performance at Remembering 1619, a play directed by Joanna Haigood of Zaccho Dance Theatre, which acknowledges the first shipment of enslaved Africans reaching Virginia 400 years ago.

"I'm one of the ones that decides, 'I'm not having this, yo, I'm out,'" says Jarrel, summarizing his character in the play.

His onstage persona is much like Jarrel in real life: acrobatic, resilient and close to his roots. From the stage, Jarrel tells the story of Africans surviving in the Western hemisphere. In real life, Jarrel is part the story of how African Americans have survived on the West Coast of the United States.

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