Marcelino DaCosta
Degree: Community Worker - Outreach and Development
Year of graduation: 2004
Breaking barriers through hip-hop
Award-winning B-boy (breakdancing) artist Marcelino DaCosta – aka FrostFlow - shared his message of empowerment through hip-hop culture in a TED talk in Vancouver in December. The grad of both the Community Worker and Art Fundamentals programs (2004 and 2002) is also a senior staff and program leader for BluePrint for Life and UNITY Charity organizations supporting at-risk youth. Check out his TED talk here.
FrostFlow has long believed in the power of art to empower young people. The lifelong Mississauga resident founded hip-hop collective Ground Illusionz Crew in 1999 as a 16-year-old high school student. The group has gone on to compete and educate across the country, earning many titles.
Although FrostFlow is devoted to dance, it was not his initial career choice. He came to Sheridan originally to study visual art but made the transition to community work in 2003. “I had a stronger drive to develop tools for creating change in my community,” explains FrostFlow. “The pragmatic and versatile approach of utilizing arts for change was something I noticed through the struggle of my art practice early on.”
Frostflow then established a new goal: to make the arts more accessible and to free local hip-hop culture from stigmatization. “By creating opportunities, fostering collaborative efforts and progressing art education, practitioners such as myself, who were given a hard time about our art, could be respected for our potential and contribution.” It was then that Ground Illusionz evolved from a competitive hip-hop crew into an internationally respected art collective, explains FrostFlow.
His latest work with UNITY sees FrostFlow offering free weekly Hip-Hop art sessions at THE HUB, the new community centre at Mississauga City Hall. The program is scheduled to expand over the next year and a half. Other projects lined up for this year include launching his own art education business, and continuing to inspire others as a speaker both here in Canada and in Japan in 2016. On the teaching side, FrostFlow was recently featured in a Toronto Star article. Read it here
FrostFlow remains passionate about the role of art in connecting our diverse communities, particularly as a venue to share our collective stories. “By acknowledging the value of art and its practice we can have a discourse around our stories related to who we are and why we are here. From witness and experience, I know art is an integral part of those answers. Answers that bring the past, present and future together and are critical to our well-being in society. I don't know what is more important than that.”
Learn about Sheridan's Community Worker - Outreach and Development program
Learn about Sheridan's Art Fundamentals program
Get the latest from FrostFlow: FULLSTEPSAGA.COM
Award-winning B-boy (breakdancing) artist Marcelino DaCosta – aka FrostFlow - shared his message of empowerment through hip-hop culture in a TED talk in Vancouver in December. The grad of both the Community Worker and Art Fundamentals programs (2004 and 2002) is also a senior staff and program leader for BluePrint for Life and UNITY Charity organizations supporting at-risk youth. Check out his TED talk here.
FrostFlow has long believed in the power of art to empower young people. The lifelong Mississauga resident founded hip-hop collective Ground Illusionz Crew in 1999 as a 16-year-old high school student. The group has gone on to compete and educate across the country, earning many titles.
Although FrostFlow is devoted to dance, it was not his initial career choice. He came to Sheridan originally to study visual art but made the transition to community work in 2003. “I had a stronger drive to develop tools for creating change in my community,” explains FrostFlow. “The pragmatic and versatile approach of utilizing arts for change was something I noticed through the struggle of my art practice early on.”
Frostflow then established a new goal: to make the arts more accessible and to free local hip-hop culture from stigmatization. “By creating opportunities, fostering collaborative efforts and progressing art education, practitioners such as myself, who were given a hard time about our art, could be respected for our potential and contribution.” It was then that Ground Illusionz evolved from a competitive hip-hop crew into an internationally respected art collective, explains FrostFlow.
His latest work with UNITY sees FrostFlow offering free weekly Hip-Hop art sessions at THE HUB, the new community centre at Mississauga City Hall. The program is scheduled to expand over the next year and a half. Other projects lined up for this year include launching his own art education business, and continuing to inspire others as a speaker both here in Canada and in Japan in 2016. On the teaching side, FrostFlow was recently featured in a Toronto Star article. Read it here
FrostFlow remains passionate about the role of art in connecting our diverse communities, particularly as a venue to share our collective stories. “By acknowledging the value of art and its practice we can have a discourse around our stories related to who we are and why we are here. From witness and experience, I know art is an integral part of those answers. Answers that bring the past, present and future together and are critical to our well-being in society. I don't know what is more important than that.”
Learn about Sheridan's Community Worker - Outreach and Development program
Learn about Sheridan's Art Fundamentals program
Get the latest from FrostFlow: FULLSTEPSAGA.COM