It’s best appreciated in the context of a milonga, a casual gathering for amateur tango practitioners to come together and dance, and an event where a nondancing observer like myself is the exception.

The milongas of New York resemble nothing else in the city. Enter a different world! People of all ages and races come together to form couples in this most formally sensuous genre. (The women’s shoes alone could be a separate art form.) The city has milongas year-round, some in ground-floor bars with dance floors and others in small studios. It’s affecting just to watch the basic beauties of tango style there, with the upper bodies nestling so intimately above the wide range of dynamics and vocabulary shown by the feet, legs and pelvis.

On some evenings the floor clears for a visiting star couple, who then dance about three numbers, hungrily watched and eagerly applauded by the audience of regular participants. When the floor then refills with other dancers, the star man and woman usually join in, taking different partners now and then.

On Tuesday at the Dardo Galletto, Ms. Centurión and Mr. Missé danced three duets. Ms. Centurión — a less virtuoso dancer than Ms. Hills, but still lovely — was all honey, blond and gold in hair, earrings, dress and shoes. Mr. Missé wore a black suit, black shirt and broad red tie. He had recently injured his right hand, which was in a cast.

But he was much as I remembered him. He carries his elegance with a sweet, charming, boyish enthusiasm — until he dances, when those qualities become transformed by music into marvels of phrasing and intense absorption. Ms. Centurión, though without his technical brilliance, is a beautiful dancer; their partnership is felicitous.

It’s tempting to concentrate on the technical highlights of Mr. Missé’s dancing. The roomful of other tango dancers burst into applause at marvels like the rapidly traveling footwork, with heel and toe in rapid trill, as he guided Ms. Centurión across the floor, or the dazzling flourishes of one foot in the air before the dancers took off in a new direction.

And yet, as I remembered from the first time I saw Mr. Missé in a milonga in 2009, some of his footwork is all the more bewildering, even when seen at close quarters. One top-speed coloratura cluster of steps on the spot stops you from analyzing even as you watch, because its arrival is so sudden that its impact is that of an exploding cloud.

Best, though, is to concentrate on the basic beauty of his style, which is essentially legato: gliding, lingering and sweeping across the floor in currents stronger and calmer than the firestorms they often contain. Early in their first duet, he and Ms. Centurión simply paused, together, midphrase: the suspense was masterly. She, her feet moving fast, was marvelous at turning him, he holding a pose while she did so.

The overall mood was one of ardent courtesy, in which he repeatedly helped her glow. In one tiny moment she simply swayed softly from one foot to the other, as if in the most gorgeous kind of indecision. She shares his warmth of personality. Their second duet, in which the fast stitchwork of his feet was at its most amazing, was one of mutual delight and shared wit.