Since 2008, Jo Matos has served as the Artistic Director for Joffrey Ballet School’s Children’s and Youth Ballet Programs and Summer Intensives in New York and Miami. She has over 45 years experience as a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and arts administrator at many prestigious institutions, including Ballet Hispanico, The Hartford Ballet, and the University of Hartford. As the founding graduate of the Dance Program at Hartt, Jo holds a BFA in Dance from the Hartt School at the University of Hartford. Jo has also trained at the School of the Hartford Ballet and performed with The Connecticut Children’s Ballet, the School of the Hartford Ballet, and as a guest artist with Dance Now! Miami. Additionally, Jo sits as the Artistic Advisor to Alison Cook Beatty Dance in New York City, and teaches as a Master Teacher around the country.

Through her multiple years of experience in developing curriculum and teaching dance for youth dancers, Jo’s passion for expanding her love of dance and healing children through movement has led her to headstarting multiple outreach programs that provide arts education to communities in which it is traditionally inaccessible. Jo devised the curriculum and acts as the liaison for a partnership between the Joffrey Ballet School and Fort Hamilton High School’s, “Joffrey Dance Academy” in Brooklyn. She is also the co-founder of “Dancing Day,” a school that brings dance to disabled children and adults. Jo’s work with autism and dance was featured in PBS documentaries in 1999 and 2004. In September 2022, Jo traveled to Uvalde, Texas to bring dance and joy to its elementary school communities. With previous experience bringing this programming to Sandy Hook Elementary, she conducted this weekend fully funded with generous donations from various private and public organizations, Dance On Chicago, Joffrey Ballet School, and Donate 2 Dance. Since then, she has created Joffrey Ballet School’s Arts in Education Outreach program, which has served 11 public schools across the NYC metro-area to provide low-cost dance programming to their students. This program has received funding from the Ford Foundation and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.