The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Spanish Swan Ballet: Faith’s Wish by Lorena Gomez-Maese

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

The Spanish Swan Ballet: Faith’s Wish by Lorena Gomez-Maese https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D24X2PYS The Spanish Swan Ballet is a short inspirational story about a young girl with a disability who dreams to become crowned “The Spanish Swan.” La Maestra takes Faith under her wing and tells her that anyone can dance, no matter the disability. She guides her to becoming crowned “The Spanish Swan”.

You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. In the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready.

Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. The Vox here from the Chris Voss Show.com. There you go, Lisa. The only earliest thing that makes official.

Welcome to the big show. As always, the Chris Voss show is the family that loves you, but doesn't judge it as harshly as the rest of the world because you're here to learn, grow, and learn more stuff. We are the original podcast, one of the oldest podcasts that still produces one to two new shows a day. No one's doing that in our age group of 17 years. and so hopefully we'll be last podcast standing someday soon. Go to Goodreason.com, Fortresschus Christvast, LinkedIn.com, Fortresschusch, Christfoss,

YouTube.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, and all those crazy places on the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Dear amazing young lady on the show with us, she is going to be promoting her book called The Spanish Swan Ballet, Faith Wish, by a very. Lorena Gomez Me Essay.

And welcome the show. How are you, Lorena? I am fine. Thank you. There you go. I am excellent. I am excellent. Give us your dot coms or websites, social media.

Where do you want people to find out more about you on the interwebs? On the website, Spanish Swan. Mm-hmm. And it's a dot com or? That's dot com. There you go. And so give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside this book?

The book is about, it's a short inspirational story. And it's about two sisters that go to a dance studio. And one is they're five years apart. And the little girl, her name is Faith. She has a disability. And so she always goes with her sister. And she wants to become the queen of the parade in Spain. It takes place in Granada, Spain.

And the composer, actually, for the ballet that's going to be coming out next year is from Spain. Carlos Sleu is Juan Antonio Simaro. And the music is just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. He's famous in Spain and actually comes to L.A. a lot as well. Well, there you go. There you go. And have you seen, is this a famous ballet or is it when you made up for the book? I did the book first and now I'm doing the ballet here in Nevada. Oh, wow.

Yeah, and so the composer from Spain will be here. And I'm hoping to get a choreographer who is a friend who also lives in Spain here as well. Oh. So it's going to be, yes. Well, that's got to be fun. So basically, it may be a play that's supported

by the book, in other words, I guess. Yes, yes, absolutely. Wonderful stuff. And so you tell us about some of the characters that are in the book and what they're up to. Okay, well, starts out when the little girl is about nine years old

and her sister's about 15. So when they go into the studio, they start rehearsing, warming up, so forth and so on. But the girl, Faith, is very, very shy, but she's doing all the moves. And so she has something wrong with her. She was born with her leg stiff, so she cannot, she thinks she cannot dance. But the teacher notices that her dance, is coming from her heart and soul. And so she is showing her how she can come back out of the wall and the ballet bar

to learn how to the steps, the way that she can do it. And so this is how this works. And then five years pass. And then she was crowned the queen. And now she's so it's just a message to anybody who has a disability that you can do it. you can do it no matter what if it's coming from your heart and soul that's what's going on yeah and so did you what made you want to write a book about ballet did you study ballet did you work in ballet well i started dance when i was four years old and that was tap

and then at the age of nine starting at the age of nine i was at a dance of nine i was at a dance studio. And that was for ballet folklorico and classical Spanish dancing, castanets, flamenco, hottas, which is in ballet shoes. So I have been doing this my entire life. I am a dancer, director, producer, choreographer, and now an author. So it just came out. And the reason why I am starting, I started it was that I have eight young grandchildren. Well, five teenagers and yeah, five teenage, six girls and two boys. They've all been on the stage. That's a lot of teenagers.

Five, five of them. Two 16 year olds, two 15 year olds, a 13 year old. Then I have 11, nine, and six years old. And they're all, they're all dramatic. My family is into the visual and performance. arts. So I'm really a supporter of that, obviously, but I'm about tradition and culture. That's what my life has always been about. And I've worked for the city of L.A., Cultural Affairs Department, where I did the program for the Warner Kids, for the Warner Grand Theater that was historical

in San Pedro, California. So six generations of San Pedro. Now I'm here in Las Vegas. I have a daughter and a son-in-law that live here in Las Vegas. The reason why I started to write the book is because my daughter, Catalina, and myself, we went to see my friend who owns a huge ballet school in Long Beach, California. And it was the two oldest, who are 16 now, they were two years old. And they had already been on stage for a year doing dance and other things. you know, into music and all of that. And so when the orchestra started for the Nutcracker,

the kids got up out of their seats and started dancing in the aisle. My daughter, her name is Catalina. She owns a dance studio in San Pedro, and she teaches dance on Catalina Island every Friday. She and I looked at each other and I said, I do not think this is going to work. So we tried it a couple of times, had them sit down, but they did not want to sit down. They wanted to dance in an aisle.

That happened three times. So we were only there for about no more than 15 minutes. And then we decided to come home. But on the way home, I said, because of devices, I said, I have to do something that's short, not a three-hour ballet. It's got to be short so that kids are going to learn about theater, about dance, about music, all of these things that are therapy. And I never heard that it was therapy until we had COVID. Then all of a sudden, when all the musicians were playing, it is therapy. It helps you heal, be happy, and so forth.

So that's why I wrote the book. How I came up with it, it was meant to be. and it only took me 20 minutes to write this book. 20 minutes to write a book? That's a good deal. That's a good deal. 20 minutes. And because it came from my heart and soul,

I had to do this for my grandkids and kids to be able to go to a theater and to social, be social with everyone and learn something, tradition, culture. So that's why it's, started it. Tradition and culture. So there you go. Ballet. And so now your focus is trying to turn this into an actual show or ballet show, I guess.

Yes, I have. I've already got, I've been working on it. And it's ready to go. That's why I'm here. There's so many more options here. And I have a studio that's going to let us use their dancers. for this so I can get it on video so that it's going to be in the catalog for musical rentals.

So anybody can use it to keep their studios open because every year, ballet schools do the Nutcracker. And so this is what keeps them going on so that they can rent it and use it. The music by this composer, Juan Antonio Simado, I met him and it was just meant to be, from Spain here. And when I say here in California. And so with his music,

I listened to this one CD that he had, and I chose what number on the disc would go to the paragraph in my book. So it's not, it was something that I heard from him that I actually put in that, paragraph. And I said I was only going to be 30 minutes long. And just because it was 30 minutes long after hearing the music. So I've done it two times just as a rehearsal so that I can have a visual, which I can visualize without having it, but I wanted to see it and go through the whole thing. So I did that three times, but now it's got to be a little bit stronger.

stronger in the dances and everything like that. Stronger in the dances. There you go. And why do you like ballet? What do you feel it's important and what does it culture to give back to people? Okay. Ballet to me, I'm not a ballerina. And yes, I've taken ballet.

I have one daughter who's a ballerina. And she was all over the place dancing ballet. And ballet is about body placement. And so any genre of dance that you want to learn, you should have ballet lessons to know where your body should be in the matter of what type of dancing you're learning. So if it's hip hop, jazz, tap your body. You need to know your body. Some people want to be ballerinas and be on point shoes, ballet dancers, the boys, the men, so forth and so on. It's just, well, it's called a sport now for a few years ago,

but it's just really, really amazing for your body. This particular dance is not just have ballet in it. It does have different genres, and that's what the next book that I'm going to be doing, I've already done it in 2003, 2004, and 2008, which I am not a ballerina, taken lessons. I can teach a little bit of L.A., but I'm still teaching.

and I've been teaching, I'll just tell you for 50 years. Wow. There you go. Teaching for 50 years. You know, it's such a great way to tell stories, too. Oh, oh, yes. Well, that's what it's about, too, is that you're expressing yourself when you have stories and so forth and so on. Yeah.

And so when people read the book, what do you hope they come away with when they read it? It's going to give them courage and know that someone can, cares. Someone knows that it can happen. Don't have to be perfect with any of your body in order to, to, you know, exaggerate what's coming from your heart and soul. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. I think there's just such a beauty in the art and human form, of course, you know, telling stories and, and, and, you know, you've got to watch, you know, you've got the music and you've got sometimes, narrative but you know the story plays out through human movement and you really you really have to kind of you know really understand how that works i mean i've taken people to the ballet and they're just like i don't get this um i have a little bit more harder time with the opera i love the ballet but the opera opera opera has hit and miss for me sometimes i just i really have to tune into it

um yes and uh you know it's it's even worse if there's the disconnect of language i mean i've been to a lot of operas where they have the where they feed you what the what the actors are saying but it's really it breaks the fourth wall yes yes it is i love opera too um i was a professional and two dance companies one in for ballet phocloidico from all different regions in mexico and i have one from spain and spanish yeah and so i do not i speak a little bit of spanish and i understand a little bit of Spanish, but when I was eight years old, and I was

in Mexico with my aunt, they had mariachi's for a party. And so it's really funny because I told my aunt, I said, I love this music, even though I don't know what they're saying. I mean, that's sometimes,

sometimes that's the greatest thing, you know, I remember I'm a big Steely Dan fan, but their lyrics were so complex and ambiguous. It was sometimes hard to figure out what they were saying. And I think for 20 or 30 years, I went listening to their music and I would just babble the lyrics, but the music was just so good. I just didn't care. Yeah, exactly.

Like after 20 years, I sat down finally and went, what the hell are these guys talking about? Like, what is it? And a lot of their lyrics are designed to be ambiguous, but actually have meaning. And so I actually sit down and do a project and be like, okay, we're going to learn all the lyrics to. Exactly. But when the music's that good, that's, I mean, that's just how it is. I mean, a lot of rock songs, some of the best ones, I probably still don't know the lyrics fully. I'm the same way.

I have no idea. You don't even care. You're just like, the music is so good. I love the music. Yes, it makes you move, makes you happy, but you don't know what they're saying. but it's okay. Hey, it still feels good. And after a while, you know, I finally caught up to it.

And it was like, oh, oh, this is what's going on. This is what this song's about. You know, I've been singing it wrong for 20 years. I have no idea. Then you'll just turn it off because you have, you know, juveniles, not juveniles, but little kids around. Mm-hmm. And you say, uh-oh, that's not the right song.

Sometimes they are. Yeah, yeah, you've got to be careful all the songs. So are there any future books? Or where do you see yourself going from here with the story and everything? Well, I have two things in mind. I want to start a new ballet company. And it would be the Spanish dance company, Spanish Swan Ballet Company.

What I wanted to say about that is that in that 30 minutes, it's not just ballet. Belay is a story. And so, yes, we do have ballet dancers. on point Fanchis but there's music in there that I chose

that we do jazz we do jazz flamenco I love flamenco yeah footwork several of the contemporary

we have about four other genres of dance to this music and getting the story told to the audience Oh, wow. That's really well. Yeah, I love all those versions of, and Spanish music.

It's basically a Spanish swan ballet. Are there a lot of Spanish-oriented ballets? I'm not familiar with any. The choreographer, my favorite of all time, is from Spain. His name is Naharo. He's in L.A. right now. And he's a choreographer for Carmen. That's a Spanish ballet Carmen.

Okay, yeah. He'll be there for three months. I'm super excited about that for him because I'd love him to choreograph also. He can choreograph my ballet. I choreographed it, but he can. Anybody can, you can have the story and the music, but you're going to change your choreography.

Some people do tradition to keep it, but some people just change it like in the United States, say for the Nutcracker. Mexico City has it in their way of tradition. Santa Barbara, California. They have it like the 1940s celebrities

decade, so forth and so on. So as long as you have the story and the music, then anybody could do what they want for their, you know, reason to prevent for events, for fundraising, for whatever. Ah, there you go. Yeah, lots of different options

that you have there. Oh, yes. And it took you 20 minutes to write the story. Now, the story talks about the girl has a disability. And she has to overcome that disability. So that's kind of her hero's journey, if you will, in the story. And what made you want to put that challenge in there? What was the choice as to why you made that?

I don't have an answer for that. It just snapped at me to do it that way. I didn't look at anything. None of this DIY stuff. I did not know what I was doing. I just sat there with a piece of paper and a pencil. And I don't even use pencils. I had a pencil.

And I was watching NCIS. Ah. So when I heard, when I heard, I asked myself, when I was watching TV, what is my favorite music from growing up and all, everything that I've learned? And I said, Spanish music from the composers from the 17th century, 18th century. worn up with, I worked really hard with all of these dances that we learned with that music. So I said, okay, Spanish. And then when I was watching NCIS, I heard them say Swan all of a sudden. And I said, oh, my God, that's my favorite ballet, the Spanish.

It's just called Swan Lake. And so that's how I got the name, Spanish Swan. Spanish Swan. There you go. You know, Swan Lake is a beautiful. I believe I've seen that live, if I recall correctly. I used to do a lot of symphony and art stuff back in the day. There used to be a lot of touring of Broadway shows.

For some reason, I don't get notifications on. Maybe they're still going on. I'm just done on the email list or anymore. Well, it's getting bigger and bigger. Visual and performing arts are just really getting bigger and wider and just to show the education. Oh, yeah. For the kids that are coming up that want to be,

they want to be a dancer or singer or actor. It doesn't matter. Just telling stories. There you go. Telling stories so important and everything else. And yeah, if you could turn this into a traveling ballet or I suppose maybe just

that would be ideal. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And then the other book that I'm going to do, which I love Tchaikoski, and I'm not a ballerina and I really wanted to

I did the full score of it in 2003, 2004, 2008 and it was really traditional because I did eight genres of types of dance, some of it cultural, like for instance

Los Vigitos means the little old men and in the party scene of the Nick Harker they are doing the dance with the mask on that made them look like they were 100 years old and the cane and everything. And it was just really, really good. And I got a lot of response on how different and how colorful it was.

And it was just really fun. And I did it all by myself. I took me a year. I project a year in advance when I say I'm going to do this or do that. I already know what I'm going to do in a year from now, God willing. You're doing better than I am. I'm just cruise long going, I don't know what's going on, but we'll just keep doing whatever. That is.

Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like you have quite the vision for this and approach to it where you're going to take and try and make it mainstream and everything else. It would sure be great, you know, if it went to the big time there and everybody could get a chance to enjoy it and maybe it'll become one of the big things. I know you're the first author. I think we've ever had the show in 17 years.

Really? I want to start excited. I believe. I know it's it's a lot of people the show so the way I look at it too is this isn't about me this book is not about me this is about the gift that I've been given to share with people that I've done for decades yeah and to get it out there for people to just be happy and read a new book yeah be happy getting entertained you know these days sometimes the world is a little dark.

You know, we've got wars and wars and lions and tigers and bears and so, you know, we need all the entertainment we can get and maybe, you know, to give us some, you know, balance of what's going on in the world. So you need to laugh and smile sometimes. It's kind of necessary. So there you go. Well, as we go out, give people a final pitch out to pick up your book. I imagine, I don't know if it is. If anybody out there works in helping put together ballets,

would you be interested in being contacted by them if they hear the show? Absolutely, definitely. The book right now is on Amazon, by the way. The book is on Amazon right now. It has been for a few months. There you go. And there'll be a link on the Chris Foss show. Give us your dot-coms as we go out and we'll wrap up the show.

Okay. I have so many of those. Let me think. can can I do an email yes yeah if you want

okay so it's Spanish Swan 2020 at Yahoo.com there we go Spanish Swan 2020 at Yahoo.com and do we have the other ones thrown in then too? The Spanish Swan ballet is the website

dot com okay yes all right sounds good then. Well, thank you very much for coming to the show. It's been a delight and just wonderful to have you on. And I hope you achieve the goals you're shooting for there. Because, you know, we need more art. We need more, you know, diversity. And I like, I like to have different things to go to, you know. I mean, I'm not really great, but, you know, having new stuff that you can experience and and I just like new stuff and it's fun and something different, you know. Because, I mean,

I kind of know, like, Manum, what it was? Manum, uh, butterfly, I think it is or whatever. You know, some of these things, you know them and you know them so well. And, but you're like, oh, that's, this again. Like I saw cats once. I saw cats once. I don't, I don't need to see cats again ever. It's called inspiration.

Yeah. It was a beautiful show, but, you know, it's, I don't know, it's just not going to make my top 10 list of, uh, next to Metallica and Rush. Um, so. But it's a great show. I just, you know, I saw it. I did it. But these are like new things, you know, discovering new things and learning new things

because it expands the mind and build you out. Anyway, well, thank you very much for coming on. We certainly appreciate it, Lorena. Thank you for having me. Thank you. And thanks for me honest for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, order per book, wherever fine books are sold, the Spanish Swan Ballet, Faith Wish.

also go to facebook.com, YouTube.com, and LinkedIn.com for just Chris Voss, one word, and tell them I sent you. It's my question. I don't know what the hell I'm doing there. Thanks, Vons, for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistant. Visible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed.