Amélia Bentes graduated from Escola Superior de Dança (Lisboa), has a BA from the European Dance Development Center (The Netherlands), a Master in Communication Sciences from UNL (Lisboa) and the title of Dance Specialist from Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa.
She started her career as a professional dancer at Dance Alliance (England), directed by Mary Fulkerson, and was a guest dancer in several independent projects of The School of Hard Knocks, directed by Yoshico Shuma (New York). As a performer, she highlights having worked with the Amsterdam Dance Theatre Company (The Netherlands), collaborated with Brazilian choreographer Lia Rodrigues in two pieces, danced several pieces by Paulo Ribeiro and improvised with Vera Mantero and Meg Stuart in the context of "Festival Danças na Cidade". Amélia Bentes has been a member of Clara Andermatt's dance company since 1992. It was there that she started dancing professionally, and was an assistant in several productions. In 2019, she performed in MUIÇAS, a work by Tânia Carvalho, at DDD - Festival Dias da Dança (Porto).
She has been developing choreographic work under her own name since 1997, and has presented it outside Portugal, namely in the Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Italy, Spain and Brazil. The works Eternuridade, Sem chão sem fim, Um fio de ar and EGO SKIN have been funded by the Ministry of Culture, Fundação GDA and EGEAC. EGO SKIN was considered the bestc horeographic piece in 2007 by the organization Guia dos Teatros, alongside Cabeças no Ar. Mar és, her first choreographic work, won the 3rd national prize of the program Novos valores da cultura (1988).
Her creation and performing process has been enriched by workshops with the most relevant names in contemporary dance worldwide, namely Steve Paxton, Wim Wandekeybus, Alan Platel or David Zambrano.
She has participated in several theater and film productions and has choreographed for other artists' projects.
The artist adds teaching expertise to performing and creating, having taught several workshops on movement and contemporary dance in Portugal and abroad. She has been teaching at Escola Superior de Dança since 2005, where she is currently an Adjunct Professor.
