Afghanistan’s first female Olympic breakdancer: ‘I want my big dream’

When Manizha Talash saw a video of an Afghan breakdancer on social media in 2020, she didn’t believe it at first. But that moment ended up changing her life, unlocking new possibilities and dreams for the 17-year-old living in Kabul.

Three months later, Talash had summoned the courage to visit the gym where the breakdancers, known as the Superiors Crew, trained, hoping to learn from the person she had seen spinning on his head in the video.

“There were 55 boys, and I was only a girl,” Talash explained. At first, she was hesitant to do anything more than watch the dancers, but as she got to know the breaking community, her concerns disappeared – and her determination to pursue the sport increased.

“In that gym, gender was not important,” she recalled, speaking fondly of the Superiors Crew. “At school or in my family, they always told me, ‘You’re a girl. You can’t do that thing, or that sport, or that job,” she said confidently in perfect Spanish, a language she learned after finding safety in Spain in 2021. “But within that gym, they always told me, ‘You can do it. It is not impossible. It is difficult, but it is not impossible.’”

So she got to work, mastering power moves in training and unlocking a wider understanding of hip-hop culture, as well as her place within this dynamic art form. She did this under the watchful eye of her first coach Jawad Sezdah — the very dancer she saw in the online video that ignited her passion in the first place.

Four years later, she is now Afghanistan’s first “b-girl”, a term to describe female breakdancers. Sporting short, choppy hair and a streetwear style, her cool and collected demeanour belies the endless hours of work she put in to achieve her dreams.

Now 21, she’s preparing to compete in the Paris Olympic Games, crediting Kabul’s close-knit breakdancing community for helping her get there.

But it hasn’t been an easy journey to the Games.

The breakdancing gym in Kabul came under attack multiple times, in a country grappling with political and cultural churn where the role of women in public draws particular scrutiny.