The Tami Tango Trio shattered expectations the moment it walked off the stage at the Cat in the Cream to roam through the audience while performing. This was just one in a series of spectacles that blended theatricality, expressive dance and traditional tango music during the Argentine ensemble’s Sunday night show.

The trio is named after founding member Eduardo Tami, a distinguished flutist and composer. Pianist Leandro Marquesano has been playing with the group since 2010 and teaches piano in the “National 17” high school in Buenos Aires. Guitarist Emiliano Ferrer is marking his first year with the ensemble. Although the three musicians, all from Argentina, have not played as a trio for long, their clean performance demonstrated a highly cohesive interpretation of the music.

There were no programs; Tami simply introduced the title and discussed the elements of each piece before diving in. The trio played the first work without dancers, building a rapport with the audience and setting the intense rhythms of the tango. The interplay between the piano and guitar created a stable grounding for Tami’s virtuosic flute solos, which he played with a fierce precision.

As the musicians began the second piece, professional dancers Claudia Marciano and Facundo Barrionuevo stepped onstage hand in hand and began to tango. Their movements complemented the angular characteristics of the music, and their elegance and enthusiasm enhanced the energy of the concert. After the piece finished, the dancers left the stage and the trio performed the next several selections alone. The alternation of music and dance allowed the ensemble to showcase the music as an essential aspect of the traditional tango.

Tami performed two of his own compositions during the course of the evening, “La Mina de Valle” and “El Orientalito.” During the former, he wandered out into the audience, bending to aggressively play in the face of various listeners.

The show reached its peak during the trio’s performance of Astor Piazzolla’s “Oblivion.” The music was hauntingly beautiful, and the ensemble performed it with exceptional delicacy and spirit. The dancers returned to the stage from opposite sides of the room to intensify the atmosphere in a poignant performance that symbolically demonstrated the heartrending separation of the music. The duo moved as if it were their last dance before an eternal parting; their gestures and facial expressions suggested a rionuevo in dancing to the passionate intimacy and impending estrangement. Audience members joined Marciano and Bartrio’s fervent finale, rounding out the evening with a sense of exhilaration.