By Chris Harding
Special to the Reporter

First Night Boston still reigns as the oldest and largest New Year's Eve arts celebration in North America. Once more the festivities are relying heavily on the talents of Dorchester and Mattapan performers, particularly those of the younger generations.

DotArt returns to Cloud Place, opposite the Boston Public Library Main with those three-story-high marionettes (giant papier-mâché heads and cloth puppet bodies manipulated by 200 feet of rope). This year the kids dramatize Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" to live music.

The Grand Procession will also have Dot fingerprints all over it. Under the supervision of Sara Peattie of the Puppeteers Cooperative, students from Codman Academy made 18 dragon puppets on December 22 for the "Action" section of the parade. Artist Diane Zimbabwe worked with young people at the Brookview House in Mattapan, where they created variously-sized houses (out of everything from cardboard boxes to popsicle sticks) to symbolize the end of homelessness. They too will carry these "dream houses" in the Grand Procession. Another parade highlight: Dynasty Productions' Cynthia Coker of Mattapan reports that her Caribbean Bandleaders, a competitive costume band, will show off their "fancy sailor/fruits and flowers" costumes, feathery and glittery reminders of this summer's Caribbean Carnival.

Project STEP, which offers young people of color training in classical music, boasts two very accomplished string-playing brother-and-sister duos from our neighborhoods. Cellist Tony Rymer, his violin-playing sister Marta and two other students formed the Project STEP String Quartet in 2003-04 and have impressed audiences with their interpretations of pieces by Mendelssohn, Dvorák and African-American composer George Walker. O'Hearn fourth-graders and twins George and Lauren Brown play the cello and viola respectively. You can hear these virtuosi STEP up to the mike at the First and Second Church at 1p.m. and 2 p.m.

For the seventh year, Melville Park resident Heinrich Christensen will be giving an all-Bach recital at King's Chapel, where he is music director.

Nostalgic for Erykah Badu or the girl groups of the '50s and '60s? Check out Vintage: Sisters in Harmony, by now First Night faves. Fulani Hayes (Dorchester), Rochelle Randolph (Mattapan) and Cynthia Barbour (Dorchester) and their back-up trio swing through the decades. Participate in their interactive routine in Room 200 at the Hynes from 4-6 p.m.

In the dance realm, Rainbow Tribe members and Dorchester residents Lucas Legere and Melissa Buffer will present their bold choreography as "Tribe Vibe" in Hynes Room 306 at 1 p.m. and 2:15. Later in the day at 7:30 and 8:15 in the same space OrigiNation, an umbrella group of various young dance ensembles from Boston neighborhoods, will showcase members from Dorchester and Mattapan. Dancers from the Cleveland Middle School and the UMass- Boston Dance Department will be appearing at 2 p.m. in Room 310 at the Hynes as part of the Citizen Schools series.

Behind the scenes as well Dorchester and Mattapan residents are overseeing and organizing to keep this million-spectator event running smoothly. Alene Burroughs (Mattapan) is First Night's office manager. Emerson Kington (Lower Dorchester) is the Hynes Convention Center manager, and Joyce Linehan (Ashmont) is director of Media Relations.

The cumulative talent of folks from Dorchester and Mattapan is pretty impressive. But after all, it's only proper and proportional that Boston's largest neighborhood should make so many and so diverse contributions to the city's biggest annual arts party.