Marise Cardoso aka Djiiva
Twenty-six years conducting dancefloors on four continents.
DJ · Creator of M.O.V.E · Mentor · Artist-Researcher in Culture & Health
Trained as a cellist in youth orchestras in Brazil, Marise has made her living from music since 2000. In Barcelona she founded and directed the festivals Pulgas Mix and FEMELEK, which brought together more than a thousand artists.
Two decades of tours, artistic residencies and music research, combined with more than a thousand hours of training in yoga, meditation and sound studies, gave rise to M.O.V.E: a participatory practice that reads a group's energy in real time and leads it, through curated music and the guided exploration of movement, from a room of strangers to a community sharing a single pulse. Since 2022, M.O.V.E has been hosted by festivals, cultural and educational institutions, inclusion programmes, retreats and companies, and in 2025 it became the subject of her Master's in Musical Arts at NOVA FCSH University in Lisbon.
Specialised in Cultural Prescription for mental health at the University of Porto, she mentors the careers of emerging artists in EMMA–UPBEAT, a programme funded by Creative Europe, and is an outspoken voice for women over fifty in the music industry.
A trained ear, an architect's eye, a heart for the collective
Marise Cardoso is a Brazilian artist based in Lisbon. Conservatory training from the age of eight tuned her ear; a degree in architecture taught her to think in relations, flows and structures. She builds a set, a session or a festival the way an architect designs a building, with every element working for the whole.
She was still a teenager when a concert in a hospital showed her the power of music: patients who could not hear felt its vibrations through their bodies. Her work has followed that discovery ever since, sharing music and movement with people and communities, above all those who need it most.
Marise spent fourteen years in Barcelona, at the core of the city's independent music and arts scene throughout the 2000s, and six in Abu Dhabi and Dubai as music curator and resident DJ. Every city filled her record bag and widened her repertoire; every crowd sharpened her reading of bodies in motion.
Ser Super Sônico, the platform she founded in 2015, is home to the projects she leads today and to those still to come. Decades in, her practice keeps growing with every dancefloor and every community she meets.
Culture is Health
For twenty-six years Marise has watched what happens to people on a dancefloor: bodies wake up, isolation loosens its grip, strangers become a group. Today she brings that knowledge into the field of Culture & Health as an artist-researcher.
Her master's research at NOVA University Lisbon, built on practice-based observation, documented the perceived impact of M.O.V.E: participants reported reduced stress and anxiety, a stronger sense of belonging, and greater self-esteem and confidence. She went on to specialise in Cultural Prescription for mental health at the University of Porto and, in 2026, joined the Culture and Health Forum in Vienna during a Culture Moves Europe residency.
The need is urgent. More than a billion people live with mental health challenges, according to the WHO (2025), and loneliness has become a silent epidemic, affecting one in six people worldwide. Health systems are turning to culture as part of the answer, and the European Commission is preparing EU guidelines on culture, health and well-being for 2028.
Marise's work in the field rests on three commitments:
Reaching those who need it most. Music and movement taken to people who rarely find them on their own: prisons, migrant communities, people with disabilities, women in men.
Grounding practice in research. Methods tested in the field and examined with academic rigour, so that their impact can be described, shared and trusted.
Programmes that last. Long-term partnerships and sustained funding, because regular practice is what allows the benefits to take root in people and communities.
Djiiva · DJ sets
For festival stages, clubs, open-air sessions and cultural programming.
Global grooves, sonic rituals
An electrifying blend of Brazilian, Afro, Latin, funk and electronic grooves, in a soundscape crafted for a borderless dancefloor celebration.
Twenty-six years of reading crowds live have given Djiiva a rare instinct: when to hold a room, when to lift it, when to let it breathe. Digital, all-vinyl or participatory, each set is built in real time from a repertoire that began in her father's record collection.
Each moment a pulse, each transition an invitation to feel, to move, to remember.
Selected Stages: Formentera Jazz Festival · Maré Músicas e Artes Atlánticas · Festival MIMO · Ozora · Universo Paralello · Fusion Fest .The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi . F1 Shanghai . Rec Beat and many others
Co-founder of NSISTA (2008–2014), the self-produced tropical electronic duo that toured three continents.
M.O.V.E · Moving Organically Your Vital Energy
For cultural institutions, health and inclusion programmes, schools, festivals, community centres, retreats and companies.
When the DJ leaves the booth and dances with the room.
M.O.V.E breaks the fourth wall of the dancefloor. Marise plays the music, guides the experience and dances among the participants, and the line between who plays and who listens disappears.
In this ludic activity, nobody needs to know how to dance: every age, body and language has a place in the circle.
Selected contexts Central Prison of Puducherry, India · Thamarai Educational Center, Auroville, India · Down syndrome futsal team, Pouso Alegre, Brazil · Jardins do Bombarda, Lisbon · Ozora Festival · Festival MIMO . Festival Maré Músicas e Artes Atlánticas . Ecstatic Dance Roma and others.
Listed in the European CARE · Culture for Mental Health catalogue.
From 2027, with the support of DGAbe rtes, will working with migrant communities in the Lisbon outskirts.
Sonic Lab · Mentoring, Talks and Training
For artists at every stage of their career, and for schools, universities, festivals, corporate events, and music and creative-industry conferences.
Twenty-six years active in an industry that never stops reinventing itself.
Mentoring, masterclasses, workshops and talks in three languages, from an artist who built an independent international career, directed festivals, released her own music and secured public funding.
With artists, she maps a clear path for consistent career growth: a sharper artistic identity, a press kit that opens doors, preparation for showcases and international music markets, and the funding that turns ideas into projects.
Her signature theme is creative longevity: building a life in the arts that grows richer with time.
Highlights: Official mentor, EMMA–UPBEAT from Creative Europe · Talk on Music & AI, Telenoika, Barcelona · Member of female:pressure , UM.IM União de Mulheres na Indústria da Música em Portugal, Global Club Music Network and other music collectives.
Wellbeing for organisations
For HR and people teams, companies, hotels, resorts and retreats.
Music and movement that keep teams present, connected and well.
Marise came to yoga and meditation to balance the demanding life of a touring DJ, and her programmes grow from that experience: a practical reset, with music as a gateway to presence and presence as a gateway to connection. From active breaks in the working day to M.O.V.E sessions for whole teams, each programme is designed with the organisation and built to return across the year, so the benefits accumulate.
Credentials: RYT 500 yoga teacher, Yoga Alliance, with more than 1,000 hours of training in India, the USA and Costa Rica · Integral Sound Studies and Practices, Svaram Sound Academy · Wellness consultancy for resort groups and wellbeing centres in Sri Lanka and Brazil.
ELAS · Electronic Sisterhood
In 2007, when electronic music line-ups were overwhelmingly male, Marise founded FEMELEK in Barcelona, which presented more than seventy women artists across six editions.
That commitment continues today in ELAS · Electronic Sisterhood, her mentoring network for women and non-binary artists.
An artivist over fifty and still touring internationally, Marise makes the case on stage and off: maturity is artistic capital.
