All Toes Point To the Picket Line

Palmquist further wrote that he had addressed dancer concerns about restrictions on rehearsal and performance hours, rest times and free days. Palmquist stated in the letter that if the dancers did not end their strike by noon today, the ballet would withdraw its proposal.

Management presented its draft agreement after rejecting one drawn up by AGMA.

The dancers showed up at the Warner early yesterday morning for their daily ballet class, then put on a specially scheduled daytime "Nutcracker" performance for a group of area schoolchildren. Though bad weather kept many of the kids away and the theater was less than one-third full, it was an emotional show that the troupe performed "like it was opening night," said one of the dancers. (Many dancers spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they feared retaliation if they were named.)

After the curtain fell, the dancers packed their bags -- including makeup, warm-up clothes and heating pads -- and carried all their personal belongings from the dressing rooms.

"It's all very sad," one dancer said. "In the past 24 hours I've been embarrassed to be a dancer at the Washington Ballet. I've always thought that the show must go on, and I've been proven wrong."

The two sides have been meeting since the beginning of November. The dancers told management on Monday that they would continue performing only if management accepted the dancers' version of an interim contract agreement.

Putting on "The Nutcracker" has inflamed the long-simmering issues of rehearsal hours, casting and rest days because dancing the ballet has been such a strain, this dancer said. A company member may have to perform the role of a parent in the first act, then change costumes and come on in the lengthy snow scene pas de deux, then change and perform another pas de deux in the second act.

"Sometimes we have to do that twice a day," the dancer said. "So we're exhausted, and when you're tired you lose your concentration and injury happens."

Palmquist, in his letter to the union, countered that "The Washington Ballet's workmen's compensation statistics are comparable to or lower than published data from other companies."

This may be the first time dancers have carried picket signs in the Washington area, since the Washington Ballet had never been unionized before AGMA began representing the dancers in February. The last ballet strike nationally, according to AGMA, was in 1997 by members of the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

On the mezzanine level of the Marriott on Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday afternoon, the dancers prepared to go on the picket line.

Nibbling the edges of chocolate chip cookies and tying twine around placards they would wear, they fell silent when Kallas, their local union representative, came in and called for attention.

"We proceed?" she asked.

"Yes," they answered.

"I need to hear that," Kallas urged.

"YES!" they shouted, then began stringing around their necks the posters that read: "Washington Ballet Dancers are LOCKED OUT. No contract -- no Nutcracker. DANCERS NEED YOUR HELP. BOYCOTT THE WASHINGTON BALLET." Silently, they filed out of the room, sneaking looks at themselves in the mirror.

The dozen and a half dancers walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, turned left on 13th Street and formed a circle in front of the Warner Theatre, where they began to walk and chant: "No contract, no 'Nutcracker.' " "What do we want?" "A contract." "When?" "Now."

By 5:30 p.m., they numbered more than 50. The dancers had been joined by members of the stagehands union, the wardrobe union and others. The Metropolitan Washington Central Labor Council inflated a 15-foot rat with red eyes and mouth. Around its claws hung two placards. The last two times the council used the rat were against an asbestos-removal company and a demolition contractor accused of unfair labor practices.

With their toes pointed out, the dancers marched in the rain. "We're all a little bit scared," said 20-year-old Kara Cooper, in her fourth season with Washington Ballet. "But we feel we need to stand up for our rights."