New York City Ballet sparkles and blurs in opening program

Asked about George Balanchine's ultra-modern ballet "Agon," Arthur Mitchell once said, "It's not so much the difficulty of the steps or how flexible you are, it's the precariousness."Anxiety was in the air in 1957, when "Agon" premiered. It was the year "West Side Story" opened on Broadway, with its warring gangs and switchblades; the Cold War was in full swing; and the Ku Klux Klan forced an African American man off an Alabama bridge to his death.