Happy hour has just begun at the 600 Restaurant at the Watergate, but save for a man bent over a burger at one end of the bar, the room is empty. The bartender, a leggy young woman whose perfect skin and arresting eyes are set off by her crisp white blouse, leans over a scrapbook, slowly turning the pages. Frozen moments from her other life flip by.
There she is in one of those pretzel moves only dancers can do, folded up on the floor, her knee elegantly pressed to her nose. In another shot, she's in a ruffly pink tutu and tiara, poised on one leg at the center of a production of "The Nutcracker," the bandage crisscrossing her knee barely visible under her tights.
"Wow, Nikkia, you can do that?" says a passing busboy, glancing at the photos. "I gotta get you to dance on the bar."
Nikkia Parish laughs. She's used to a bigger stage than the narrow slice of floor behind her bar. Some of her scrapbook photos were taken at the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater, across the street and a world away. For the past two years she was a member of the Washington Ballet, dancing at the Eisenhower in the neoclassical masterpieces of George Balanchine, the traditional full-length story ballets, and works by leading contemporary choreographers.
Then in late February she was told that, after the spring season, she would not be welcomed back. And now her biggest role, aside from slinging booze weeknights at the Watergate and weekends at downtown's Avenue Nightclub, is as the subject of an unfair labor practice complaint against the Washington Ballet.
The American Guild of Musical Artists, the union that has represented the company's dancers since last winter, has charged that Parish and another dancer were unlawfully discriminated against in retaliation for their union activities.
Washington Ballet Artistic Director Septime Webre would not comment on the case except to say that both dancers were dismissed for "artistic reasons."
The regional arm of the National Labor Relations Board investigated the matter and found it to have sufficient merit to schedule a Sept. 12 hearing before an NLRB administrative law judge.
As organized labor has become more and more disorganized -- witness the recent split in the AFL-CIO, reflecting unions' loss of influence and falling membership nationwide -- it may come as a surprise that a dancers' guild is trying to throw its weight around. Other unions may be losing might, but men (and women) in tights are organizing.
"Our membership grows every year," says AGMA National Executive Director Alan Gordon, with a barely perceptible sniff. "It's not declining."
But Parish's story is not only about labor issues. It's about what a ballet company can demand of its dancers in the name of art. It's also about ballet culture, where typically the artistic director takes the role of the feared father figure and the dancers are the cowed children, afraid to speak up, used to the futility of protesting the myriad personal slights levied at them under the guise of artistic prerogative. They all want the director's favor, and the better roles and star turns that flow from it. Make waves and you may find yourself forever in the back row, or worse.
So Parish, who says that speaking up for better working conditions is what got her in trouble, is unusual. But she's used to that. Standing out is nothing new for her, a black ballet dancer in one of the world's least-integrated fields. Of the Washington Ballet's 22 dancers, she was the only African American woman.
