Max Pollak, is a 2011 Bessie Award Nominee, 2010 Individual Artist Grantee of the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance and 2008 fellow in Choreography from the New York Foundation of the Arts. He is one of the most prestigious names on the international tap scene today. He is recognized worldwide for his superior musicianship and his highly individual style as the first person to merge authentic Afro-Cuban music and dance with American rhythm tap and body music to create RumbaTap.
Originator of Cuba's first tap festival, he has been teaching and performing there since 1998, and has worked with Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Cuba's top Rumba group, Chucho Valdés, Lila Downs and jazz legends Ray Brown, Phil Woods, Paquito D'Rivera, Slide Hampton and Danilo Perez.
He is also recognized for making European and South American classical music more accessible by playing with classical ensembles in prestigious venues like Vienna's Konzerthaus, Musikverein, Havana's Teatro Nacional and Teatro Amadeo Roldan. He has performed with members of both the Vienna Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic Orchestras as well as with the Duluth Superior Symphony, Plano-Dallas Symphony and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestras, with the latter three as soloist in the Morton Gould Tap Dance Concerto.
On faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, he travels the world with his group RumbaTap and is about to release his first CD recording as a leader.

Photo Credit: Michael Melnyk