Djola Branner, assistant professor of theatre at Hampshire College, received his BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, his MA from San Francisco State University and his MFA from The New School for Drama (formerly known as Actors Studio Drama School). His interdisciplinary work, which combines music, movement and text as language, explores the broad gray area between performance art and theatre, and gives voice to individuals historically absent from the stage. He has presented throughout the US and abroad, and published in such anthologies as Voices Rising, Colored Contradictions and Staging Gay Lives. He has taught dance, acting and dramatic writing at Macalester College, University of Minnesota and The American Musical and Dramatic Academy.