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 hundreds of multidisciplinary artists.
Two decades of tours, artistic residencies and music research, combined with more than a 1000 hours of teacher trainings 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 Universidade NOVA de Lisboa.
Specialised in Cultural Prescription for mental health at the Universidade do 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 as they touched her cello. Since then, she has made music a form of service, offered to the collective wherever it is needed.
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 for luxury hospitality venues. Every city filled her record bag and widened her repertoire; every crowd sharpened her reading of bodies in motion. Fluent in every kind of room, from independent stages to five-star venues, she carried that knowledge back to her first calling.
In 2015 that calling took a name: Ser Super Sônico, the platform that holds the projects she leads today and those still to come. A quarter century in, the circle of people who move with her keeps growing.
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 Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, 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 Universidade do 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. Practices that support body awareness, emotional self-regulation and connection with others, brought to the people and places that culture rarely reaches: prisons, migrant communities, people with disabilities, women in menopause.
Grounding practice in research. Each method is tested in the field and examined with academic rigour, so its impact can be documented and its practice passed on to other facilitators.
Programmes that last. Long-term partnerships and sustained funding, because regular practice is what allows the benefits to take root.
Djiiva · DJ sets
For festival stages, clubs, cultural programming, private & corporate events.
Global grooves, sonic rituals
An electrifying blend of Brazilian, Afro, Latin, funk and electronic grooves, from vintage gems to fresh releases, 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. Her crates hold a lifetime of listening that began with the jazz and Brazilian records her father collected. Digital, vinyl or participatory, every set is built in real time.
Every transition invites the dancefloor to move and connect.
Selected Stages: Formentera Jazz Festival · Maré Músicas e Artes Atlánticas · Festival MIMO · Ozora · Universo Paralello · Fusion Fest .The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi . Formula 1 Shanghai . Rec Beat and many others.
Original music: NSISTA (2008–2014), the self-produced tropical electronic duo she co-founded with her sister Amarilis, released and toured on three continents.
M.O.V.E · Moving Organically Your Vital Energy
For cultural institutions, festivals, community centres, health and inclusion programmes, schools, retreats and companies.
The DJ leaves the booth. Everyone finds the pulse together.
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 · T21 futsal team, Pouso Alegre, Brazil · Jardins do Bombarda, Lisbon · Ozora Festival, Hungary · Festival MIMO Portugal. Festival Maré Músicas e Artes Atlánticas, Galiza . Ecstatic Dance Roma and others.
Listed in the European CARE · Culture for Mental Health catalogue.
From 2027, M.O.V.E will work with migrant communities on the outskirts of Lisbon, supported by Portugal's Directorate-General for the Arts (DGArtes).
Sonic Lab · Mentoring, Talks and Training
For artists at every stage of their career, schools, universities, festivals, corporate events, and music and creative-industry conferences.
Lessons from a career built to last.
Mentoring, masterclasses, workshops and talks in three languages, from an artist who has stayed active for twenty-six years in an industry that never stops reinventing itself.
Marise 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 artistic collectives.
Wellbeing for organisations
For HR and people teams, companies, hotels, resorts and retreats.
A practical reset for overwhelmed minds, tense bodies and heavy hearts.
Marise came to yoga and meditation as an exhausted touring DJ, and her programmes grow from that experience: music as a gateway to presence and presence as a gateway to connection.
From active breaks in the working day to immersive M.O.V.E sessions for teams and guests, each programme is designed with the organisation, as a single experience or as a regular series that lets the benefits build over time.
Credentials: RYT 500++ yoga teacher, Yoga Alliance, with more than 1,000 hours of teacher trainings in India, the USA and Inclusive Yoga 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
Creating visibility for women in the music industry since 2000.
For years Marise played on line-ups and worked with technical crews that were overwhelmingly male. In 2007 she answered by founding the FEMELEK Festival in Barcelona, giving women in music, art and technology a stage of their own. Over six editions, it presented more than seventy artists. That commitment continues today in ELAS, her mentoring network for women and non-binary artists, and on the board of UM.IM, the union of women in Portugal's music industry.
