Lauryn Johnson

Diana Adams on Agon: “I don't remember ever sitting around discussing dancing with him. Even with something like Agon, I tried not to analyze, because then I might give too much significance to a gesture, like when I put my hand on Arthur's wrist. I knew it wasn't meant to be a sentimental gesture. It had to do with part of a movement and I would spoil it if I started to think about it. In Agon the movements were so intricate that you really didn't think in terms of whose limb was attached...

Arthur Mitchell & Diana Adams. Photos by Martha Swope, 1957 Diana Adams remembers that Balanchine wanted to compose the pas de deux before setting any of the other dances; this implied to her that he felt it would give him the key or approach to the rest of the work. Says Mitchell of that famous part, "The pas de deux is like seeing live sculpture. Before your eyes, the dancers move from one fantastic pose to another, but you don't know how they got there. Balanchine said, "This is the...

Albert Evans and Wendy Whelan. Photo by Paul Kolnik Wendy Whelan describes the impression that Balanchine's Agon made on her when she saw it for the first time at age 14, while spending her first summer in NYC as a student. "That summer, I witnessed ballerinas spinning across the stage so ridiculously fast that I almost felt blinded by them. I was spellbound by a team of Amazonian women in red kilts kicking their legs so high and with such attack that it left me breathless. I remember a...