Club of the Month: Those Who Dance (Lisbon)

After a career spent producing cultural events across Berlin, Oakland, Mexico City and Tulum - transforming industrial spaces into creative districts, promoting an opera festival in Umbria, art shows in Moscow and Buenos Aires, and throwing large-scale parties for the Burning Man circuit - Marcello Pisu had a realisation. "The most powerful weapon that we have is music and dance," he says, sitting on the floor of his apartment in the Lotus position. "There is power in movement."

That moment of clarity came in Mexico City, standing in a crowd at one of the parties he was producing. Most people weren't dancing. They were watching the DJ, checking their phones and registering their attendance on socials. But a smaller group, "it was mostly my friends, actually," he laughs, were lost in it completely, moving without apology, freed by the music rather than posturing for it. Those were his people: Those Who Dance. 

That observation became a new philosophy, and eventually manifested as a space in Lisbon. Opened in October 2024 in two former wine storage warehouses on the banks of the Tagus river in a warehouse in Lisbon, Those Who Dance is Pisu's attempt to give a permanent home to dance in all forms - not just raving, but contemporary dance, voguing, breakdancing, capoeira and choreography workshops: it is a club, an arts space, a dance school and a haven for Lisbon's queer community, all at once.

When Pisu moved to Lisbon five years ago, he found a city with immense potential, but also a scene he felt was somewhat buttoned up and lacking raw, community-driven values. There were rooftop bars and concept restaurants and sleek clubs, but very few spaces offering the kind of serious, body-first experience he'd known in Berghain and Brooklyn. When he eventually found the two derelict wine storage warehouses, he knew he could change that. 

The space is deliberately, defiantly rough. Bare concrete, exposed steel, a serious sound system borrowed from an industry friend who also relocated to Lisbon, and not much else. But Those Who Dance evolves symbiotically with the people using it: lighting changes, layouts shift, drapes appear or disappear depending on how dancers want the room to feel. No two weekends are quite the same.

Really, the space is transformed not by grand renovation but by the colourful characters and good vibes inside it - and that is precisely the point. Since opening, Marcello has closely observed how people react in the environment and made the changes around them. Initially, just one warehouse was open, then the second became a lounge area with palettes and cushions as he noticed people wanting to connect away from the dance floor. An expensive sprung vinyl dance floor for the movement classes now running through the week is another recent addition. 

Phones are banned, and there are free tickets for artists and the FLINTA community. That means people are unguarded and easily lose themselves in dancing. Connections made across his career have made bookings easier than they might have been for a new space, with the likes of the Giegling crew and Basement Love having played before. "I'm not really interested in having a normal nightclub, to be honest," he says. "That was never the point. It's more about hosting the dance experience as best as possible in all forms."

For Marcello, one of the most magical moments happens as dawn approaches and sunlight begins filtering through an opening just below the roof at one end of the warehouse. During overnight parties, the first morning glow arrives alongside exhausted euphoria and drifting smoke machines. During breakfast raves, the challenge becomes balancing daylight with intimacy.

“I don’t wanna create a dungeon in the morning,” he laughs, before explaining that he has listened and adds more drapes to obscure direct sun for these sessions.“I want people to feel comfortable not thinking too much about the outside world.”

Contemporary dance, voguing, breakdancing, and capoeira all happen at regular classes and workshops. The space has also recently hosted its first visual art exhibition with Brazilian artist Vinny Olympio (opening on Friday, May 29), and the plan is to open it to photographers, filmmakers and visual artists as a place to create as well as exhibit. 

The nights themselves are unlike most clubs in the city. For certain events, the doors open 45 minutes early to dancers and choreographers from across Lisbon, who fill in a short form, get their work checked, and then join a free improvisation session on the dance floor led by Authros before the party officially begins. By the time the DJ starts, the room is already warm - not with early arrivals nursing drinks, but with bodies in full flow. Those performers stay on and their energy is absorbed into the crowd, so the vibe is well set. 

Marcello is big on collaboration, and recently worked with Riot Lisbon, who built a vast audio-visual structure and had a local techno collective fill the warehouse with live hardware jams and 360-degree video mapping. “I love working with young people because they bring great vision and energy,” he says.

The most beloved recent addition to the programme is the DEVIANTS Breakfast Club: a Sunday morning rave that is exactly what it sounds like. Proper underground music, a healthy breakfast, and a crowd that may be arriving fresh or coming through from the night before. It has been particularly important for women, who can arrive alone without the anxieties that attend conventional late-night spaces. 

Those Who Dance has always had a strong queer community at its core. "When there is a queer community that is resident in a space, it's safer," Marcello says, and the morning format extends that safety into the daylight. This is also where the light through the warehouse apex does its best work: enough to feel alive to the morning, not so much that the outside world intrudes.

The relationship with Lisbon's licensing authorities hasn't been easy. The venue currently operates on temporary licenses, approved event by event, so long-term planning and booking internationally renowned DJs has been a challenge. But the unpredictability has had a secondary effect: each event feels exciting, un-routine and unpredictable from week to week. The community has responded to this with something approaching devotion almost from the off. “There’s this real feeling of excitement every time we open the doors," says Marcello. "And we’re so thankful to be able to do it."

Marcello is in the final stages of securing a permanent license and is cautiously optimistic. His case to the authorities is that nightlife is not the point; it is the funding mechanism. The ticket sales from parties pay for the dance classes, the art exhibitions, the yoga sessions he hosts, and the free entry for those who can't afford it. "Parties and the nightlife are the way for us to support art," he says. He points to Berlin and London - cities that regulated wisely and have become richer for it culturally, economically and spiritually. 

Those Who Dance has become, in a little over a year, genuinely special. It's the kind of place that has been found by everyone who needs it. Artists, queer communities, expats from Berlin and Mexico City and Brooklyn, young Lisboetas who had nowhere like it before. It isn't (yet) a place you will find many tourists. It's for people who live in the city and have long needed such an outlet.

"Come now," smiles Marcello, "because you never know how long it's gonna last."

All music featured in this article has been chosen by the Those Who Dance team, selecting tracks that they believe capture the essense and ethos of their space.