Manhattan Arts Alliance and 2008 fellow in Choreography from the New York Foundation of the Arts. A native of Austria who has lived in New York since 1991, he has been tapping since the age of eleven, and playing drums and percussion since the age of fourteen. From the beginning, he has focused on studying each discipline in depth in order to improve his understanding of the other. 

At age seventeen he was first exposed to the African American style of rhythm tap when seventy-one-year-old Carnell Lyons became his first mentor. Lyons, a Kansas City-born childhood friend of Charlie Parker, had toured the world successfully as a member of the vaudeville acrobatic tap act "Jesse, James and Carnell". Settling in West Berlin in the 1960s, Lyons became the pioneer of rhythm tap pedagogy in Europe. 

While completing his theater degree at the Theater-an-der-Wien Musical Theater School in Vienna, from 1988-1990, Pollak became an accomplished professional drummer and tap improviser. After working in several large musical theater productions in Germany and Austria, including one under the direction of Broadway choreographer Michael Shawn, he moved to New York City following an invitation from Heather Cornell, artistic director of the Bebop tap quartet Manhattan Tap. His tenure with the company lasted until 1997 and culminated in a collaboration at Lincoln Center with jazz bass legend Ray Brown. Pollak contributed significant portions of the choreography for the twenty-five-minute tap suite Brown composed.  

During the early 1990s, the most important breeding ground for emerging tap talent was the weekly tap jam session hosted by tap legends Dr. Jimmy Slyde, Dr. Buster Brown, Chuck Green, and Lon Chaney at the New York City jazz club La Cave. Pollak was a regular, taken under the wing of the masters.  For three years, he also co-hosted a weekly tap jam session at the East Village club Deanna's, together with his close friends Tamango of Urban Tap, Roxane Butterfly of Worldbeats, and saxophonist/composer Paul Carlon. 

Pollak also furthered his musical studies in jazz at New York's prestigious New School, graduating in May 1995. Among his most inspiring teachers were the legendary jazz drummers Charlie Persip and Vernell Fournier, and the pianists Ted Rosenthal, Lee Musiker, and Phil Markovitz (music theory, arrangement). To develop his versatility as a dancer, Pollak studied ballet (Jan Miller), jazz dance (Daniel Tinazzi, Phil Black), theater dance (Robert Tucker, Chris Chadman), and diverse tap styles with recognized masters (Savion Glover, Bob Audy, Lesley Lockery, Phil Black). 

It was Latin percussion master Bobby Sanabria, though, who introduced Pollak to the earth shattering power and spiritual depth of Afro-Cuban music.  This experience turned out to be the defining influence in shaping Pollak's career.  

Inspired by playing in Sanabria's Afro-Cuban big band and by New York City's vibrant Latino music community, Pollak soon began incorporating elements of Afro-Cuban jazz and folkloric music in his performances, developing the concept he calls "RumbaTap", a melding of Afro-Cuban music and dance, American jazz, body percussion, and tap dance.  For four years, he studied Afro-Cuban percussion at the Harbor Conservatory in New York with some of the best drummers in Latin Music (Johnny Almendra, Jimmy Delgado).  Pollak soon distinguished himself on the international tap scene as an innovative soloist and educator. 

Pollak was chosen as a soloist for the show Super Son Cubano in February 1999 which featured some of Cuba's most important Salsa musicians: Juan Pablo Torres, Jose Fajardo, Malena Burke, and Israel Miranda. The concert was filmed and turned into the critically acclaimed documentary Como Se Forma Una Rumba in 2001. Teaching tap in Cuba frequently since 1998, Pollak has been embraced by the leading Cuban folkloric group of its day, the legendary Los Munequitos de Matanzas. He has frequently appeared with them as a featured performer and has taught tap to their lead dancer Barbaro Ramos. Today, Los Munequitos feature the "RumbaTap" style in all of their current performances, notably on their recent performance DVD Live in L.A. 2003.  

One of Pollak's crowning achievements was to receive a grant from Arts International in 2001 to help establish Cuba's first tap festival in Havana. He brought along Paul Carlon's quartet of virtuosic jazz musicians, who joined him in performing with an all-star ensemble made up of Cuba's finest jazz musicians led by Chucho Valdez. The bond between Carlon and Pollak was solidified in Cuba, and their collaboration continues to this day. 

RumbaTap - the music/dance ensemble Max Pollak created and named after his unique body percussion/tap concept, premiered at El Taller Latino in Manhattan on August 8th, 1999 featuring Bobby Sanabria, Cuban Rumba legend Barbaro Ramos, and Paul Carlon's Latin jazz quartet Grupo Los Santos. Evolving over the following years, RumbaTap now evokes a powerful Latin "Orquesta" including marimba, saxophone trio, vocalists and an explosive percussion section led by six tap dancers. RumbaTap has toured throughout Europe, Japan, and the United States, most recently performing with DanceBrazil to a capacity crowd at New York City's Central Park Summer Stage. 

Today Pollak is recognized worldwide as the creator of "RumbaTap."  So respected is Pollak for this concept that his performances, teaching schedule, university lectures, and residencies take him throughout the United States, Europe, Central and South America and Asia.  Pollak has published articles on tap dance in several international publications including Dance Magazine; has recorded CDs with his long time musical collaborator Paul Carlon, Grupo Los Santos, TrioNada, and members of the Tito Puente Orchestra; has appeared in films and documentaries including the critically claimed Como Se Forma Una Rumba with some of Cuba's most prestigious salsa musicians; and was the tap coach for lead actor Pablo Veron on the Sally Potter film The Tango Lesson. 

Max Pollak is the 2008 recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Choreography