Boston Dance Company Prepares To Tap In The New Year

BOSTON (CBS) - The Boston Tap Company, hard at work, getting ready for First Night.

Kids of all ages coming together to tap in the new year.

"It gives them an outlet to do something that they love to do," says Sean Fielder, 33, the founder, teacher and inspiration of the Roxbury-based tap dancing company.

"They can go somewhere where everybody is focused on the same thing," Fielder says. "Having fun, sharing the art form, and just have that chance to present it."

WBZ-TV's Diana Perez reports

Fielder started Boston Tap in 2007 and about 80 dancers have come through the program. And it's not just for Boston dancers.

Mike Murphy, a freshman at Emerson College, is from New Jersey.

"You look around, everyone's smiling, everyone's having fun. It's a great boost of energy," Murphy says. "I started in first grade. For a boy that young it's like hard to tell a lot of your friends that you've started dancing."

Another dancer, 17-year-old Hannah Stubblefield-Tave, lives in Newton. She's been tap dancing since she was 10.

"It's nice not to be dancing with the same people that I would at home and to meet a lot of new people and that gives people different backgrounds and different experiences," Stubblefield-Tave says.

Fielder says it's that mix that helps give his troupe its character.

"We act more so like a family than a company," Fielder says. "If there's anything that I am telling them, it's just to be themselves, because that's our motto: the only way to be different is to be yourself."

The Boston Tap Company is ready to be themselves on First Night at the Hynes Convention Center.

"It's really exciting," says Stubblefield-Tave. "I know the crowd's gonna be really good."

Says Fielder: "To be able to perform on such a day, you know going into two-twelve, the end of 2011, it's gonna be fun."