About the work
Agon is a twenty-minute, abstract ballet for twelve dancers by Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine, composed between 1953 and 1957 on commission from New York City Ballet with support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Stravinsky and Balanchine shaped music and choreography closely together; the premiere took place on 1 December 1957 at the City Center of Music and Drama in New York, conducted by Leon Barzin. The work completes the loose trilogy with Apollo (1928) and Orpheus (1948), the two earlier Stravinsky-Balanchine collaborations with a Greek framework.
Plot
Agon – Greek for 'contest' – tells no story but unfolds in formations for twelve dancers that recall seventeenth-century French court dances such as the sarabande, galliard and branle. With no scenery or costume decoration, the focus rests entirely on bodies, formation and the serial score.
Cultural significance
Combining twelve-tone compositional technique with Balanchine's purely abstract, decor-free choreography, Agon is considered one of the most influential ballets of the twentieth century and the high point of the Stravinsky-Balanchine collaboration. It remains part of New York City Ballet's core repertory today.