Let imagination reign, enjoy

 Over the past couple of weeks I have encountered two such, both with great charm. One was the celebration of the Beaujolais Nouveau — hosted by the French Ambassador and the Alliance Francaise at Meikles hotel. The other was a quaint shadow show at the Gallery Delta.
My husband thought we were going to a wine tasting.  I was clutching our invitation to celebrate the Beaujolais Nouveau, but hadn’t much of an idea what this entailed other than French wine and hopefully French chee-se.  Wine in abundance there certainly was — brightly labeled bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau, the new wine of the season. 
“At one past midnight on the third Thursday of each November, from little villages and towns like Romanèche-Thorins, over a million cases of Beaujolais Nouveau begin their journey through a sleeping France to Paris for immediate shipment to all parts of the world. Banners proclaim the good news: Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!  (The New Beaujolais has arrived!) One of the most frivolous and animated rituals in the wine world has begun”
As far as I know this is the first time Zimbabwe has joined in this welcome of the new wine and it was an invitation to pure fun. In his very warm speech Ambassador Ponge invited Zimbabweans also to enjoy these gifts of the earth. 
It’s a kind of mad harvest festival, and a total delight to those of us who have been taking life pretty seriously for the past few years. An invitation to celebrate joy and love, it was great fun amidst the stylish formality of high-class service at Meikles.  Comedian Carl Joshua Ncube gave a sneak preview of his stand up show and as we left a DJ was turning up the volume for the party goers to get down on the dance floor.
Good cheese and real French pates were served as well as some sizzling kebabs and little meat balls. A vegetarian friend was a bit plaintive at the lack of choice for non-meat eaters and we ran out of French bread quite early and resorted to sliced white. But the evening belonged to the wine, and that flowed with great bonhomie.
The shadow theatre at the Gallery Delta was a more somber occasion but also an invitation into another world, into illusion and wonder. In the gallery’s blacked out amphitheatre is a small window of light and as the music swells so images are silhouetted on the screen. The landscape changes with surrealist trees, figures and animals, filigree and fantasy as the audience is invited in to a suspension of disbelief. Shadow theatre is a precursor to cinema, and the evening had an old fashioned air about it. After the show we were introduced to the animators, many of them teenagers.
Set to the dramatic but despairing music of Mozart’s Requiem in D minor this was a reminder of judgement day and soul searching rather than the bachanalian fun of the new wine festivity.
“The requiem annou-nces the supernatural might of the last things, which renders man accountable. It shows the agony of death, of grief and despair, which the intimidated soul feels in the presence of the voice of justice. And it shows on the other hand comfort and self denial coming from the love of God.”
Both occasions reminded me of the power of diversity and of what is possible when we let go and allow a willingness to try out new things, let the imagination take flight and enjoy pleasure with each other.