Norberto 'Pulpo' & Luiza
Norberto "Pulpo" Esbrez
and Luiza Paes
The Argentine NORBERTO ESBREZ has almost 20 years of professional experience as a dancer, tango teacher and choreographer. He worked for the most important theaters and show-places in Buenos Aires, such as: Teatro San Martin, Teatro Astral, Teatro Opera, Cafe Tortoni, El Viejo Almacen, La Ventana, Casablanca and many others.
Norberto is the third generation of "tangueros" in his family. He carries eighty years of tango tradition and history. His grandfather and father were bandoneon players. Julio Esbrez, Norberto´s father was among the most talented and respected tango musicians of his time.
For almost two decades Norberto has devoted himself to Dance and carefully researched and developed a very personal technique and style. His tango steps were first practiced with Rock'n Roll and from there comes this spontaneous, playful style. His movements are done continuously, very round and smooth. Complex sequences of ganchos, sacadas and enganches are totally improvised. The fluidity of his style and his hability with the legs was perceived in such way at the milongas of Buenos Aires that he was given the nickname "El Pulpo" (the octopus).
The deep understanding of the legwork in tango also made him known in Buenos aires and all over the world as "The King of Ganchos". Tireless studious, he is constantly discovering and adding new movements to the tango vocabulary such as: enganches, enredadas, suspensión, the ocho "loco", cruces con cambio de peso and other figures that he hasn´t named yet. Today he´s considered the most creative of the tango dancers.
He lived for 7 years in Brazil where he taught throughout the country as a member of the "Academia Argentina de Tango". He first lived in Rio de Janeiro and then moved to São Paulo, where he ran his own dance studio and held a weekly milonga. He organized twice a big tango event there: Gran Salón de Tango de São Paulo.
LUIZA PAES, his partner, has studied music since she was age six. For many years she has worked in musical education and vocal technique. In 1998 she began to study and dance tango with Norberto in Sao Paulo. Tango became then, a new form of musical expression for her. She started working as Norberto's assistant at his classes in his studio in Sao Paulo. Later  on she  became his partner. She traveled to the United States, France, Holland, Germany, Italy and Russia to teach tango workshops with Norberto being also his translator. Since then they have been travelling all over the world teaching. In March of 2000 Luiza taught with Norberto at the II CITA (International Congress of Argentine Tango) in Buenos Aires and one of the classes at the Congress was led by her with great success: "Musical Interpretation". Luiza has been teaching also a special class for women. She works technique for all levels emphasizing the leader and follower's role, improvisation and the ability of adapting which is what a tango dancer has to develop in order to follow different styles.
In 1999 with much success Norberto and Luiza began traveling to teach tango and give exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Russia, Spain and Japan. Since then they have been based in Buenos Aires traveling all over the world during most of the year. They were part of the teaching staff in the II, III and VI, VII CITA (International Congress of Argentine Tango, in Buenos Aires), respectively 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005. They were teachers at the Tango Magia Festival, in Amsterdam (2000),  Portland Festival (1999, 2001, 2002, 2005) and have been part of the Las Vegas Tango Festival teaching staff from 2001 till 2004.
In the year 2000 they have filmed a series of three instructional videos with "Bridge to the Tango" which is distributed through Internet.
From September of 2000 until December of 2004 they had a teaching group at La Catedral that gave group classes. In 2005 they started their own festival with the first "Pulpo´s Tango Week", an event that consists in a week of classes, shows and milongas in Buenos Aires with students from all over the world and a first level team of teachers and assistants. It´s also an event that intends to project new talents in the tango scene. Since 2006 they have as their teaching space and práctica La Patriótica, an amazing room from the end of the 19th Century in Buenos Aires´city center with a regular group of native students and students from all over the world that come to learn tango in Argentina.