Dance Doctor Has the Cure
for Two Left Feet
By BRENDA HIMELFARB
Palisadian-Post Contributor
As you exit Santa Monica's Parking Structure 5 on the Fourth Street side and head toward Broadway, you'll immediately recognize the strains of hot dance music hitting your ears. If you peer into the storefront windows below the garage you're sure to see three or four couples, all in their own world, twisting, turning, gliding. Skirts fly. Feet stomp. Heads bob. Hips move rhythmically from side to side. Everyone is filled with energy and enthusiasm. They're getting better with each move and are filled with a renewed confidence.
After all the years of excuses, they finally got the help they needed and wanted all along. They're finally being treated by a "dance doctor." And John Cassese, the energetic head "surgeon," who has practiced for over 30 years, watches intently as patients are "cured" by a member of his staff.
If Cassese's father, who owned a construction company in Lake Mahopac, New York, had had his way, the youngest of his five sons would have joined the family business. But, for as long he can remember, John Cassese wanted to dance. "I grew up watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and I always wanted to be Fred," he says. "But that was not in my father's plan. In fact, when I told him that I wanted to be a dancer, he asked how I was going to make a living. 'Why don't you study to be an accountant?' he suggested. "I know you don't like getting your hands dirty."
So, to appease his father, Cassese entered a community college. However, within two weeks he announced that he was moving to Manhattan to become a professional dancer. "In those days, Italian-Catholic boys didn't leave home until they got married," he says. "But married or not, I had to go. I was the first of the family to leave."
Working as a shoe salesman during the day, Cassese, who had won numerous amateur dance contests, spent each ^night training to be a ballroom dancer and eventually began to teach and perform. First it was a gig at the Plaza Hotel, then he opened for Judy Garland and soon he was dancing each weekend at Tavern on the Green, a restaurant in Central Park. Finally, he invited his parents to watch him dance. "After that, it was 'my son, the dancer,'" says Cassese, with a laugh.
Soon Cassese was bicoastal, and in 1984 he placed a small ad in the back of Los Angeles Magazine that read "Door-to-Door Dance," and another in Beverly Hills 213 announcing "The Dance Doctor Makes House Calls." Responses were slow in coming, but soon word of his unique approach spread. The people whose homes could not accommodate a "house call" took lessons on the portable hardwood floor that Cassese had installed in the living room of his Castellemmare apartment.
So it began. From the days of a small, homemade living room studio to a 1,000-sq.-ft. space next door to JiRaffe Restaurant to his current over 3,000-sq.-ft. studio, Cassese's "practice" has grown to include a myriad of classes held to treat all those who think they might have two left feet.
"If you can walk, you can dance," shouts Cassese gleefully. "I’ll prove it every time. The key element is determination."
Sounds of salsa, swing, hip-hop or country, to name a few, emanate from Cassese's studio, over 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Group lessons that include such things as belly dancing and rave are offered along with private instruction. Some clients, however, want special attention for specific occasions.
"We get many couples who want to learn a dance for their wedding reception," says Cassese. "In fact, they usually want a whole choreographed ' first dance' that includes an entrance and an exit; I mean the whole nine yards."
The dance might be a fox trot or a waltz, a rumba, mambo or perhaps a tango, which has become very popular. It seems the belief that most men don't want to take dance lessons is no longer valid. According to Cassese, as many men as women initiate lessons with their wives or significant others. "The male walk-ins, all ages, are equal to the female walk-ins," says the dance doctor. "It's a whole new world."
Over the years, the gifted Cassese has performed countless dance exhibitions at special events including Billy Crystal's and Wolfgang Puck's 50th birthday parties. He's produced his own videos, has performed in musical theater and has choreographed routines for many stage productions as well as films and television programs. Unlike many unlucky show biz wannabes, Cassese has truly lived his dream.
