GURO MASQUERADES In 1993 Jenny Lynn McNutt first began to document the masquerade ceremonies of the Guro and Bamun cultures in Ivory Coast and Cameroon. On her first visit a Fulbright Fellowship allowed her to live with the Guro people for a year to study rural based, traditional forms. She has subsequently returned to collaborate primarily with urban artists. In 199 she received a grant from the Eastman Foundation which enabled her to edit hours of footage. From these years of work two video documentaries have been made, Guro Masquerades and Stories from Abidjan. Presently she is working with celebrated choreographer and teacher Rosemarie Guiraud of the Ivory Coast. In West Africa the masquerade, an enduring multi-media spectacle, is the culminating aesthetic experience in a dazzling display of visual and performing arts. By no means a relic of former times, it is a dialectic form par excellence changing to express the needs and reflect the lives of people here at the end of the 20th century. Masquerades originated in rural as well as urban environments, in agrarian settings as well as commercially complex societies. They spawned a percussive performative style that endured the Middle Atlantic passage and continued to flourish in fresh incarnations on far shores. The brilliant driving force of West African cultures continues to influence music and performance especially in the Americas. Behind the display of virtuosity on well-known themes and endless improvisation is the belief in the transformative power of art. Visual and philosophic streams of creativity and imagination inform the masquerades so they are charged with purpose. Art functions in a multitude of ways: social, political, judicial and spiritual.Excerpts - The following ceremonies were filmed in 1993-4 and 1995 when I was living in the Ivory Coast. The Guro people of Central Ivory Coast, with whom I lived, generously collaborated in sharing with me their time and knowledge. JL McNutt 1998