Águeda Sena

Maria do Céu Águeda Camacho de Sena Faria de Vasconcelos ComIH (1927 — 2019), better known as Águeda Sena, was a distinguished Portuguese ballet dancer and choreographer.

Early life and training Sena was born on 16 June 1927 in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. She was the daughter of a Bolivian mother, Nazária Celsa Camacho Quiroga de Vasconcelos (known as Celsa Camacho), and of António d'Azevedo Sena Belo Faria de Vasconcelos, who was a pedagogue and writer, and a professor of Portuguese at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon, the Rousseau Institute in Geneva and elsewhere.

At the age of four, she began learning rhythmic dance with a Greek teacher based in Portugal, with whom she studied until the age of eight, performing on stage for the first time, in a show by her teacher at Lisbon's D. Maria II National Theatre in 1932. At around the age of 12, she began studying classical dance at the school of Margarida de Abreu. She participated, initially under the name Maria do Céu Vasconcelos, in several of the school's shows including in the Tardes Literárias (Literary afternoons) at the Teatro São Luiz in Lisbon, as well as in opera shows at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos and at the Coliseu dos Recreios. In 1947 and 1948 she was Abreu's teaching assistant, while, at the same time, following courses at the Lisbon National Conservatory. There she studied dance, again with Abreu, and theatre with Alves da Cunha and Maria Matos, as well as taking private violin lessons from Gonçalves Pereira. She finished her course at the Conservatory with a high score and then passed the entrance audition at the D. Maria II National Theatre, which entitled her to be granted a Professional Actress/Dancer Licence.

The Círculo de Iniciação Coreográfica (CIC - Choreographic Initiation Circle) had been founded by Abreu in 1945. Sena immediately showed herself to be one of the CIC's most promising members, starting by joining the corps de ballet and then dancing solo roles. She made repeated trips between 1948 and 1953 to Paris, with a scholarship from Portugal's Institute of High Culture, studying classical dance with teachers such as Olga Preobrajenska, Rousanne Sarkissian (Madame Rousanne) and Lubov Egorova. Paris provided her with her first contacts with modern dance when she studied with the company of the American choreographer Katherine Dunham, then on tour in Europe. Together with her Portuguese colleague, Luisa Vitorino, also a former student of Abreu, she was part of the cast of the Katherine Dunham Company for a few months. In Paris, she attended a course on pedagogy at the Sorbonne University and a night course in art history at the Louvre. She also established contacts with important people in the French theatre, such as Jean-Louis Barrault and Jean Vilar.

After returning from abroad, she participated in a revue at the Monumental, in 1956, and in two plays, starring Laura Alves and Artur Semedo, again working for the impresario Vasco Morgado. Sena, at that time, became popular, above all for playing the role of Severa, in O Fado (The Fado). On 7 March 1957, Sena and Lima participated in the first official television broadcast of Radiotelevisão Portuguesa (RTP), performing the ballet Os Enganos do Amor (The Deceptions of Love), with music by Tchaikovsky.

After the Japanese experience, Sena started to collaborate regularly, both as an actress and choreographer, with the Teatro Experimental de Cascais (TEC), particularly in productions by Carlos Avilez. In 1971 she was invited to put on, in Norway, a show composed of short plays by the French playwright, poet and musician Jean Tardieu. As a fellow of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, she went to Copenhagen in Denmark, where she won a prize for children's theatre. Her last work for the Gulbenkian Foundation was in 1975. She also worked on several films.

Sena appears on a 2015 Portuguese €0.72 postage stamp.