One of the most important contemporary dance companies in Brazil, Cisne Negro combines originality and tradition. The Company mirrors its base city, São Paulo: Cosmopolitan, urban and a magnet for the many Brazilian races and cultures. The city takes its energy from its diversity. Like the city, Cisne Negro’s style explores and integrates apparently diverse elements. Brazilian black and folk tradition meets modernity and the atmosphere of a megalopolis. Cisne Negro’s repertory strongly emphasizes contemporary dance and has been working with a variety of choreographers of different styles and backgrounds. The Company has discovered and encouraged young Brazilian choreographers, as well as invited (and many times introduced to the Brazilian public) international ones, such as Vasco Wellenkamp (Portugal), Gigi Caciuleanu, Patrick Delcroix (France), Mark Baldwin (United Kingdom), Ana Maria Mondini, Dany Bittencourt, Denise Namura, Tíndaro Silvano, Mário Nascimento and Rui Moreira and Antônio Gomes (Brazil), Pieter de Ruiter and Eva Villanueva (Holand), Júlio Lopes and Luis Arrieta (Argentina), Michael Bugdahn (Germany), Victor Navarro (Spain) and Itzik Galili (Israel). Cisne Negro was created in 1977 by artistic director Hulda Bittencourt.