Havana, July 29 (RHC) – U.S. and Cuban scholars gathered Saturday at Havana's National Fine Arts Museum debated the African influence on Cuba and the rest of the western hemisphere.

U.S. professors Robert Farris Thompson, Henry John Drewal and Charles Daniel Dawson, and Cuba's Bárbaro Martínez, presented research results on the issue.

The program included also the exhibition of more than a hundred works by 40 artists on the African cultural heritage and its influence on artists in Cuba and beyond.

Scholars addressed also the influence of Afro-Cuban tradition in New York, the Yoruba-Lucumi tradition and the religion-related work of Brazilian artists.