TAP dance, like ballroom dancing, is poised between an art, a sport and a recreation – although in tap, the emphasis is luckily quite often on art.

Five years ago, a tapper and entrepreneur from Denver named Tony Waag (right) – inspired and encouraged by the late Gregory Hines – started Tap City in New York. It’s since become an annual tradition, opening its fifth and most ambitious week-long season with a gala Tuesday night at the Joyce Theater.

Although all the performances this year will be based at the Joyce – in previous seasons, it used the 200-seat Duke on 42nd Street Theatre – there’s much more to the festival than the performances.

There are classes for semi-professionals, master classes for teachers, even a Circle Line tap-style boat trip around Manhattan. There’s merchandise to be sold (it has an official sales staff of five!) and kids, plus their parents, to be inspired.

Classic tap, as practiced by the likes of Bojangles Robinson, John Bubbles, Honi Coles, the Hines Broteers and today’s Savion Glover, used to be predominantly

African-American and male.

To judge by this opener, the tap balance has changed – becoming more white than black, and more female than male. It’s an unexpected and interesting change of pace.

Of course, tap dance itself was influenced, at least slightly, by the Irish jig and the Liverpool clog dance. At its heart, though, dance is always colorblind.

Tuesday was a very enthusiastic performance, even if the one surviving tap legend, old-timer Jimmy Slyde, proved an unexplained no-show.

The best and most creative dancing came from the remarkable Jason Samuels Smith, a splendid eccentric, and the stylish veteran Brenda Bufalino.

So here, for a busy week, there’s dance on tap.

The Tap City festival runs through Sunday at the Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. at 19th Street. (212) 242-0800.