Jazz Dance Master Steps Out of L.A.

One of the few remaining jazz dance masters in the Los Angeles area left town last week, saying that changes in the dance world have made it difficult for him to teach jazz dance the way it should be taught--in the classical tradition.

Joe Bennett has been playing music since he was a 9-year-old strumming songs like “Ain’t She Sweet” on a ukulele for passers-by on the streets of New York, where he was born. He played prominent roles in the Broadway productions of “A Chorus Line” and “West Side Story.” A Southern California transplant starting from the late 1960s, the 51-year-old dance instructor counts among his students actresses Sally Field, Ann-Margret and Lesley Ann Warren. Bennett fought the currently popular hip hop and street dance styles, which he disdains as undisciplined--and paid the price. Unable to attract the number of serious dancers necessary to effectively run Studio F, the dance studio he co-owned in North Hollywood, the former Sherman Oaks resident decided to teach in a reduced capacity elsewhere.

“He is not a man who would compromise his standards just to fit in with the popular mode of the day,” student Joan Solari said. “If he was starting out as an opera singer he wouldn’t sing rap because it was fashionable.

Last week, Bennett--who taught dance in Los Angeles for nearly 25 years--taught his last dance class at Studio F.

Two hours later, Bennett was on the road to the scenic city of Redding in Shasta County, where he plans to live and teach master classes.

Close associates describe him as a demanding teacher and a perfectionist.

Rosemarie Rand, co-owner of Studio F, calls Bennett a complex man who has mellowed since the days when he threw chairs when a class wasn’t going the way he wanted.

“In his gifted way, he can be a little cruel,” Rand said. “When he gets angry or displeased it hurts emotionally. He’s sometimes very intolerant.”

Born in Queens, N. Y., Bennett began dance lessons at the age of 2 1/2. After studying ballet and tap at a local dance school throughout grade school and middle school, the dancer was accepted into the school made famous by the movie, “Fame”--the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan--and was thrown out in 1959, his junior year, for auditioning for a part in “West Side Story”--a violation of school policy.

A year later, after spending a few months in a regular high school, from which he never graduated, he finally got to dance and act in the acclaimed Jerome Robbins musical, in the role of a gang member. In the early and mid-60s, Bennett studied with jazz dance legend Matt Mattox, a protege of Jack Cole, one of the greatest influences on his dancing career.

He moved to Los Angeles in 1969, and got his first teaching job in California at the American School of Dance in Hollywood. He taught at two other dance schools before opening Studio F with Rosemarie Rand in August, 1987.

Bennett’s mettle was also tested by the bumpy waters in life’s path. A wrenching car accident in 1967 ultimately sidelined his professional dancing career for nine years. He battled alcohol and drug addiction, which he successfully overcame after a 30-day stay in an Orange County treatment center in 1983. Two marriages ended in divorce--the second resulted in a son, Morgan, now 20--before he found his current partner, physical fitness trainer Liz Sibert.

Former students and an ex-business partner say the departure of Bennett--who has choreographed dance numbers for jazz artist Chuck Mangione and taught Vincent Paterson, choreographer for one of Madonna’s concert tours--leaves a gaping void in the Los Angeles dance scene.

“There are so few masters really left,” Rand said. “He certainly is one of them. There are probably three or four left. He’s a classicist. He’s not the Michael Jackson type. Unfortunately, there’s not much outlet for that kind of dance anymore.”