Agon is a 22-minute ballet for twelve dancers with music by Igor Stravinsky.

It was
choreographed by George Balanchine. Stravinsky began composition in December 1953
but was interrupted the next year; he resumed work in 1956 and concluded on April 27,
1957. The music was premiered in Los Angeles at UCLA's Royce Hall on June 17, 1957,
conducted by Robert Craft. Stravinsky himself conducted the sessions for the work's first
recording the following day on June 18, 1957.[1] Agon was first performed on stage by
the New York City Ballet at the City Center of Music and Drama on December 1, 1957.[2]

The composition's long gestation period covers an interesting juncture in Stravinsky's

composing career, in which he moved from a diatonic musical idiom to one based
on twelve-tone technique; the music of the ballet thus demonstrates a unique symbiosis of
musical idioms. The ballet has no story, but consists of a series of dance movements in
which various groups of dancers interact in pairs, trios, quartets, etc. A number of the
movements are based on 17th-century French court dances
– saraband, galliard and bransle. It was danced as part of City Ballet's 1982 Stravinsky
Centennial Celebration.

The title of the ballet, Agon, is a Greek word which means “contest”, “protagonist” but also
“anguish” or “struggle”.