“Liz!” he repeats, as though he’d just been on the verge of remembering it. “Welcome to my studio. It’s humble but I’m proud of it. This is the main studio, there’s a practice room and an office in the back. Come with me, I want to introduce you to some people.”

He takes my hand, which startles me. He introduces me to his partner, Angelina, and his teaching assistants—also part of the studio’s performance team, he explains—the gorgeous boy is Rodrigo. The girl is Calliope—Cali for short—and she’s American.

“Where are you from?” I ask.

“New York,” she says, her demeanor a little frosty.

“Edward,” I say, “do you know him?”

“New York is a big city.” She smiles. “I know him from here though.”

I want to ask her more, but class is about to begin. As we disperse, I have the horrible thought that if Cali is American, she might recognize me.

The room has filled up with a motley mix: college students, thirtysomething professionals still in work clothes, retirees, including one silver-haired woman in a full ballet costume.

“Bienvenidos todos,” Gianluca says. He continues in his slow, precisely enunciated Spanish, “Thank you for joining us here. It’s an honor to welcome you to my studio. This is the beautiful Angelina, who will be helping me today.” Angelina stands beside him with her hands clasped behind her back. In the lights of the studio she looks even more girlish, twenty at most. “And in the black shirts, Cali and Rodrigo. They’re my advanced students, they’ll be watching you and helping. We will start with a basico, which is going to be the foundation for the dance, along with the walks.”

Gianluca and Angelina take us through the beginner moves, and we mirror them as instructed.

“Good, excellent. Now, first,” Gianluca says, “tango is not about the steps. And you are going to hear a lot of nonsense about tango in Buenos Aires, so I want to get you off on the right foot, yes?” A small giggle ripples through the crowd at his pun, but we’re all transfixed by him. “For one thing, what we learn here will have nothing to do with the stage tango, which is all melodrama. I teach real tango, which is all about connection. It’s not about how a tango looks—though of course it’s a beautiful dance—it matters how it feels. I will show you.” With this, he nods to Angelina and she cues some music on the stereo system. A song crackles to life. Gianluca and Angelina face off like bullfighters and come dramatically toward one another; he sweeps her into his arms and takes her through a spectacular and dramatic series of flairs and dips. The class oohs and ahs.