The Third Story Podcast With Leo Sidran

When he was five years old, Max Pollak had a moment. Sitting in front of a black-and-white television in suburban Vienna, he saw Fred Astaire tap dancing for the first time. “I was so spellbound by his elegance and his effortless swinging persona that I immediately decided I have to learn how to do that,” he remembers. He didn’t understand the cultural context or the language, but he knew that whatever was happening on that screen — the rhythm, the movement, the magic — was something he had to pursue. That moment sparked a lifelong journey that would take him from Austria to Harlem to Havana and back again. Here, Max Pollak tells the remarkable story of how he taught himself to dance in a place where no formal tap training existed. Early on, improvisation wasn’t just part of his style — it was the only way forward. That instinctive relationship with rhythm would become the foundation of his unique voice as an artist. At 14, Pollak met his first mentor: Carnell Lyons, a master tap dancer from Kansas City who h