 Today I'm your host Emily Merton and joining me is beloved community member Pamela Tarkansky and she's here to talk about a couple of her upcoming projects. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to learn all about life in 11 dimensions. But first off why don't you talk about what you've already done in Davis and how you ended up here. Well that's a big question. I moved to Davis from Rochester, New York in August of 1984 and opened up the dance workshop downtown at 911 Third Street and that spring in January actually of 1985 I started teaching at Davis Senior High School. So I've been at the high school. This is our 31st year in Davis both as the dance workshop and the dance theater which I also run which is a dance company and then teaching at the high school. So 31 years in Davis. Wow that's lovely. It seems like you're such an important member of the dance community and culture in Davis because I know a lot of people who come to you you know to get to practice dance. So tell me a little bit about 11 dimensions and what is behind all of that. Alright life in 11 dimensions. I love talking about this one. Okay life in 11 dimensions is about creating an environment where anyone can find all the elements necessary for living their best life ever. And because everybody's a unique individual with different skill sets, different needs and different goals, life in 11 dimensions is designed to work in multiple areas and on multiple levels. Those five overarching ingredients I believe are creativity, education, wellness, relaxation and community. So those are the five big areas that life in 11 dimension covers. Alright so it's a building. Oh thank you. Yes it actually is a building as opposed to a concept. The building will be a 22,300 square foot two-story building with a central atrium which will be built on property that is adjacent that I already own adjacent to the existing dance workshop. Oh wow I can see the sketch right here. That looks like it's going to be beautiful. Where is it? Okay so it will be located the existing dance workshop. We moved from downtown about oh 13 years ago to 2720 Del Real Place which is in the Mace Ranch area and there was extra land that I purchased at the same time it was all the same lot that that's been undeveloped. So it will be building the new building right next door to the dance workshop. That's so great. So you say you want to incorporate multiple elements of life into life in 11 dimensions. What kind of things will be featured in the building that isn't dance? Okay so again I'm going to go back to the five but I think of as the five key elements. Creativity, education, wellness, relaxation, and community. So creativity is about meaningful experiences in multiple art forms. So dance aside which will stay at the dance workshop where the Life in 11 Dimensions project has a black box theater with 174 fluid seats so we can rearrange seating at any time and the other part of the theatrical component is that the courtyard will be redesigned to be an open-air outdoor amphitheater. So we can have music and poetry readings and mini Shakespeare in the park. But then we also have space for music classes, music together of Davis for ages zero through five, but in the performing art support area there's also a recording and rehearsal space for local musicians and the black box theater will be acoustically designed to be appropriate for music presentations as well. So that's music, theater, dance, and then on the second floor is an artist loft with both smaller rentable spaces for working artists and a larger more communal area and interestingly there's also a video editing studio so we can have creative technologies in there. So those are the art forms which are part of it. There's also other programs so may tell you about the education of course I'm so overwhelmed with how much it's just doing for arts and Davis that's so amazing. It is. I'm already really excited why don't you go on about education. Okay so next component component is education and so classes in all of the art forms but also there in the new building there's space for a special events room so we have after-school academic and rich in programs and reading, writing, and science through movement in the visual arts. So there's space for that but there's also office space for coordinating running internship and mentoring programs for all of the user groups that are part of 11d and in the video editing studio and this is part of this is a great example of how the pieces of 11d work together synergistically. We can now create educational DVDs, podcasts, and webinars on a wide range of topics so that's part of our educational component. That's so amazing. What kind of programs are going to be featured in 11d? Like what groups? You mentioned that other groups are going to be involved. So multiple people, multiple local groups, and organizations have helped design the building. So for example Acme Theater has been, we hope that we will be their home base. They have been very helpful in design of the theater. We have Stone Soup, a kitchen they used to be catering. Stone Soup would be part of the wellness component with the healthy food cafe. We've had multiple people who work with massage and Reiki help design the wellness alliance area. Why don't you elaborate on the wellness? Oh wellness, I sure will. Okay so we have creativity, we have education, we have wellness component. So one of the things about wellness at any age is movement. We're moving animals. So from ballet to zumba, from gentle flow yoga to hot yoga, and multiple choices in between. We have movement covered but then we have nutrition. So there's space for a healthy food cafe and we're hoping that Stone Soup cafe will go in there. Great tasting food, great nutrition from locally sourced products and produce. But then on the second floor we also have space for the wellness alliance. People who work in alternative modalities of being well on the body. So massage, Reiki, acupressure. But also wait, there's more. There's space for people who do counseling on like financial services. They don't sell financial products but they talk to individuals and couples and families about how they use money in their life so it becomes a tool for good and not a negative drain on the family. But we're also, there's space that we're also looking for, perhaps a nutritionist or dietitian. Somebody who does chiropractic would be great. So that's that wellness component movement. Yep, there's our wellness component. Wow, I can basically live here. What other components are there? So we have additionally relaxation and community. Now relaxation, I came too late. I used to, when I was much younger, I tended to think of people who relaxed a lot as slackers because I'm kind of organized towards working a lot. And then I came to realize that relaxation was actually a really crucial component to living a balanced life and important to how the brain works. So multiple ways to relax, go see an ACME performance, participate in an art form, get a massage, read a book in the shaded outdoor amphitheater, get one of Miv scones at Stone Soup Cafe and relax with friends. So multiple ways to relax and then community. So ultimately, Margaret Mead said it in a much better way, but I'm going to paraphrase it. I don't think anything of importance ever gets done except that many, many people contribute. And one of the fun parts about this community aspect is that many of the people who are helping design this, I had 25 years ago in high school and now they're grown-ups with who are experts in their own fields, who are bringing their expertise to developing this. But I think of the community aspect kind of like throwing a pebble in a pond, creating ripples. Right now, the current site supports two local businesses, the Pamelskansky Dance Workshop, which is the studio and the dance theater, which is a performance company. The new building will allow the same site to support another 15 local businesses and organizations in the same area in a way that we will thrive together. And then Ripple 2, Davis Community. So there is literally something for the youngest members of our community and for the oldest and everyone in between because importantly, everyone brings something to the table to make a community thrive. Also importantly, it's not just for people who have the financial wherewithal for extra extras, because I don't consider these things extras, but we have scholarship program, work scholarship, the internship mentoring programs, and the expansion of already existing programs, which are classes that are free for like second wind, free for adults 65 and older. So community outreach that way, also importantly, because it's easy to get isolated, we reach out to the community through podcasts, webinars, ways that people can connect even if they can't get to the studio. That's so great. Social media and everything is such an important aspect of our lives today. So what inspired you to come up with this whole idea with already you've done so much for the community? Why more? Okay, that's a great question. You probably have already had these moments in life. We have them at different times. About three and a half years ago, I went through a time where I was reflecting on why, I mean, I've been a moderately successful person. And when I think about it, there's really not a lot of reason for it because there are much better dancers in the world. And given my personality, there are people with much better personalities. I'm cranky a lot and I'm very rule driven. So anyways, and I'm going, well, what are the things that contributed? And I go, oh, and my family, we were a welfare family. My dad ran away and left mom with five kids. Oh, so we didn't have a lot of money. And you think, what allowed me to get where I am? And I think, oh, I was able to do this or this person brought this into my life or this person I had this experience. And then you think, okay, how can I create that for other people? Because I am, community is a big part of it. I am as successful as I have been because multiple people in this community have supported my work over 30 years, over three decades. Yeah, that's so wonderful. I can see everyone using this 11 dimensions project in their lives. And when do you think it'll be done? It's a huge project. It is a huge project. We're now in the process where we're, the architect needs to develop the plan. So we're seeing if we will do a design build. And then we go to the lender and say, okay, this is how much it will cost. And we make sure the finances are in order. Hopefully we would like to break ground late spring or early summer and we'll take approximately a year to build a building of this size and detail. But it's an unusual building because there's so many different user groups with some with some very specified needs. Definitely. So it's different than just a big office building. So theoretically, if we begin in the summer of 2016, we would open in the summer of 2017. That's so great. It seems like you're really getting a move on it. It's a big thing to plan. It seems like you have it's really thought out. So overall, what do you want 11 dimensions to do to the Davis community? What impact do you want it to have on our youth, on adults, just the community as a whole? In the theater, dancers and theater people, we are taught, leave it cleaner than you found it. You always leave it cleaner than you found it. For me, it was an important choice in my life to not have children. You get to a place in your life where you realize, oh, everyone actually does have an expiration date. So how do you leave it better than you found it? Davis has been a very good place for me to be. I hope that people will enjoy it and they will find the ingredients necessary for living their best life ever at whatever age they come to it. Well, you're definitely going to help so much. I'm so excited to see what this project does to our community. And thank you so much for telling me all about it. It's such a huge thing. I want to know more, but unfortunately, we're almost out of time. So you do have a website, right? So where people can learn more and get updates. That is lifeand11d.com. And so check it out. You can, is there? Oh, also Facebook, like us on Facebook, because we do updates on that one really regularly. Awesome. What's the Facebook page, Life and 11 Dimensions? Life and 11 Dimensions. Oh, great. Thank you so much for coming today. I'm so excited for this project. I'm just I can't thank you for having me here. Oh, of course. So if you want to see more of our work here at Davis Media Access, you can go online to dctv.davismedia.org, or you can find us on YouTube at Davis Media Access. Thank you so much for watching today. I was your host Emily Martin and Pamela Trocansi joined us today. I'll see you next time.