Hundreds of children have been through his hands, he has guided their steps, he has passed on the love for folk costumes and dances and he has taught them what work and passion mean, this is, in a few words, the story of choreographer Virginel Solomon, coordinator of the folk ensembles Trandafir de la Moldova from Husi and Hora Vasluiului, both from Vaslui county.

Photo: Scoala de dans popular Madalina si Virginel Solomon / Facebook.com

Since he was a child, dance has been close to his heart and he ended up putting his whole life at the service of folk art. For 25 years he was a dancer with the Stejarelul Ensemble, and in 1999, together with Valerica Petraru and Sergiu Gaina, then director of the House of Culture in Husi, he founded the Trandafir de la Moldova Folk Ensemble in Husi, which has become a national landmark.

Photo: (c) Loredana CIOBANU / AGERPRES FOTO

The lack of folk costumes or musical instruments was compensated by the enthusiasm of those who decided to start that ambitious project, and the lack of dancers was solved in an ingenious way when the choreographer, the conductor and some of the instrumentalists brought their own children to dance.

Photo: Scoala de dans popular Madalina si Virginel Solomon / Facebook.com

With a well-established troupe of dancers in Husi, Virginel Solomon accepted in 2009 the proposal to set up an ensemble of professional dancers in Vaslui, and thus Hora Vasluiului was born.

Photo : Scoala de dans popular Madalina si Virginel Solomon / Facebook.com

The director of the Vaslui County Centre for the Preservation and Promotion of Traditional Culture, Lucian Onciu says about Virginel Solomon that "he put emphasis on details, on the way the dancers' costumes looked on them. He left nothing to chance, he was demanding in the best sense of the word. (...) The difference between him and other teachers, which I think is essential, is that he knows how to communicate with those he trains, managing to be a mentor and a friend at the same time. He has that skill of educating, of building character".

Another of their heartfelt achievements was the resumption of the Hora din Strabuni (hora - Romanian folk dance festival, strabuni - forefathers - ed.n.) which brings hundreds of dancers from all over the world to Vaslui once every two years.

Looking for new types of folk dances, Solomon travelled to different localities and thus "I discovered the 'topaitele' [topaita - type of folk dance figure with repeated jumping - ed.n.] in Tarzii [village in Oltenesti commune, Vaslui county] that are not danced in every locality the same way. The tune is the same, but the dances were different. We have countless hore [large circle folk dance - ed. n.] here, the hora of Zorleni, of Ivesti, of Perieni, of Viisoara, which are all different, different style, different variants. We have discovered a 'topaita' that seems very simple, with such a pleasant, relaxed style, but which in reality is very complex. There are beautiful things that we discover together, we had a lot of things to learn from master Gigi Ilascu and other masters with whom we worked: Teodor Vasilescu, Marin Barbu," says Virginel Solomon.AGERPRES(RO - author: Loredana Ciobanu, editor: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)