Gents and Working Girls

Tommy Tune’s earliest work as a director-choreographer engaged with issues of gender, sexuality, culture, and politics. The Club was an evening of songs and jokes set in an exclusive Victorian-era men’s club that featured all roles played by women. Tune led the cast in creating a stylized body language that approximated male behavior but, as performed by women, blurred gender lines in ways both challenging and exhilarating. The cross-gender performance of this material laid bare its misogyny without overstatement, and The Club was a long-running off-Broadway hit. Tune next joined the creative team of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, based on a true story about the closing of a bordello prompted by a crusading television personality. As choreographer and co-director, with Peter Masterson, Tune injected a burst of musical comedy brightness into the homey musical. His creativity was boundless, and numbers featuring macho, clog-dancing football players and a female drill team made up of both live dancers and life-size sex dolls were crowd pleasers that also contributed to the show’s sly skewing of culture and politics.

Therapeutic riding and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: An application of the theory of self-efficacy

Research supports claims of benefits of therapeutic riding for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); however, the effect of specific subtypes of therapeutic riding (eg, therapeutic riding drill team) has been underinvestigated. Furthermore, the theories underlying therapeutic riding programs have not been well reported, especially among studies with children with ASD. This study used qualitative data from interviews to determine which aspects of Bandura's self-efficacy were evident among participants in a 16-week therapeutic riding drill team program. Results provided evidence of the presence of selfefficacy among participants during the program. Results of this study may be used to help recreational therapists target aspects of self-efficacy in therapeutic programs for children with ASD as a way to increase self-efficacy.