Workshops bring earthy Mongolian arts to life

As his fingers run over the strings, we hear a thunderstorm and rain. When he whistles, you hear the wind. Horses run wild when he strikes his horseshoe-shaped percussion instrument, which has pairs of bells that dance to his touch.

Without lavish costumes, a dazzling stage and elaborate sound effects, Unir paints a picture of nature, the grassland, the place where he comes from.

Born into a nomadic family in the Bortala Mongolia autonomous prefecture of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Unir is in the capital bringing indigenous music of the Mongolian people to a weeklong workshop, teaching a traditional Mongolian instrument, the two-stringed topshur of the Oirat tribe, which dates back to the Xiongnu empire (209 BC-93 AD).