“He’s yanking me around to the left and to the right, he’s digging his left thumb and his middle finger — I felt like he was piercing my muscle,” Mr. Ostrovsky said in a telephone interview. “I started crying and sobbing profusely.”

He dropped out of the school. “I was depressed; I was embarrassed,” he said. “He assaulted me onstage in front of the whole cast.”

Mr. Edwards and Mr. Ostrovsky are two of five City Ballet dancers — one of whom still works with the company — who in recent interviews accused Mr. Martins of threatening or physically abusing them and others in the company. Their descriptions of his behavior — from raising his fist to physical altercations — could be another problem for Mr. Martins, who has taken a leave as the leader of City Ballet and the School of American Ballet while they investigate a sexual harassment claim against him.

Mr. Martins has long been known to have intimate relationships with dancers, as well as a quick, volcanic temper. That he was able to act so freely, his critics say, points to dysfunctional power relationships between Mr. Martins and his employees, and between him and City Ballet’s management, which at times seems to have looked the other way.

After incidents with Mr. Edwards and another dancer, Kelly Boal — who recently described her encounter to The Washington Post — some dancers suggested adding an “abuse clause” to their contract. Lindsay Fischer, a former City Ballet dancer who was head of the union committee at the time, said the clause — which had originally been proposed in response to a racist incident at the Houston Ballet — was ultimately voted down. “In the end, we left the contract the way it was,” said Mr. Fischer, now principal balletmaster, at the National Ballet of Canada. “Our opinion was we were already protected by ordinary law, not to mention human decency.”