Biography - Rita Bozi

Rita Bozi

Rita is fascinated by and interested in everything.

The Artist

Rita is a Hungarian-Canadian author, playwright, multidisciplinary performance creator, actor, a retired professional dancer and a Somatic Relational trauma and psychedelic-informed Facilitator with a Calgary based private practice (brillianthealingsystems).

She is an Alumna of The Humber School for Writers and a graduate of the National Ballet School of Canada.

From 2014 – 2016 she mentored under novelist Dennis Bock and in 2018, under acclaimed editor Adrienne Kerr. Rita’s fiction and creative non-fiction has been published in The New Quarterly, FFWD Weekly, Unlikely 2.0, WritingRaw.com, Pages of Stories, and THIS Magazine. THIS awarded her 3rd Prize in their Great Canadian Literary Hunt in 2012. In 2010, her travel stories were aired on CBC Radio Calgary’s, The Homestretch for eight months. From 2010 – 2014 she produced an annual event at the Central Memorial Library called Literary Vaudeville-Loud in the Library. She is a member of the Writer’s Guild of Alberta.

Her hit play 52 Pick Up, co-written with TJ Dawe, has been produced by over 20 theatre companies and performed in Canada, United States, England, Australia, New Zealand, Australia, Iceland and France. In 2012 it was translated into Icelandic and into French in 2013. 52 Pick Up won the Chapters’ Best Text Award at the Montreal Fringe in 2000.

In 1999 she was co-writer and performer of Ingenious Speculations at the Belfry Theatre with Roy Surette, Kim Selody and Jan Derbyshire. In collaboration with David Bloom and David Rhymer, Rita co- created, choreographed and performed in Trouser Parts in 1998 (Jesse Richardson Award nomination for outstanding direction). With Dmitry Chepovetsky, Rita co-wrote and starred in Bloodline (nominated for a Jesse Richardson Award for best new play in 1997).

In the past thirty-six years she has performed in Canada, the United States, Germany, Hungary and Iceland and Estonia. In 2018, her one-woman show My Fair Lady-The Punk Version played to four sold out shows in the studio at Theatre Junction Grand. In 2014 and 2015, her show The Damage is Done co-starring Dr. Gabor Maté performed to eight sold out shows at The Banff Centre for the Arts and at The Cultch in Vancouver, and toured to the Yukon Arts Centre.

In March 2013 she performed her one-woman evening A Night of Literary Performance Adventures in Iceland for which she received critical acclaim. With the assistance of a Calgary 2012 Project Grant and a Banff Centre arts residency, Rita wrote, co-directed and performed in Be A Man – A Performance Adventure.

Rita has worked with One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre and appeared in Featherland, Doing Leonard Cohen and Dream Machine. Her television credits include X-Files, The Adams’ Family, Cold Squad, Chris Isaac Show and Tom Stone. Film credits include Lies My Mother Told Me, Chasing Freedom, Word of Honor and A Problem With Fear.

Rita’s early career focused on dance. From 1988 – 2000 Rita performed as a dancer in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. During her career she danced with the National Ballet of Canada, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Jumpstart, Lola Dance, Judith Marcuse Projects, Karen Jamieson Dance, Dancecorps and Mascall Dance. She was noted for her roles in both Berlin Angels and Four Fridas, created by Lee Eisler.

When I Was Better is her first novel.

The Facilitator

Rita Bozi is a multidisciplinary Somatic Relational Trauma and Psychedelic-informed Facilitator. With twenty-eight years experience in the healing arts, she is the director of Brilliant Healing Inc. She works with individuals, couples and groups, leading unique, experiential and creative healing retreats. She is training individuals in her 3 Module program: Somatic Relational Trauma-informed Practices for Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy.

Rita is a colleague of Dr. Gabor Maté and studied his “Compassionate Inquiry” model as an advanced student while on retreat in Mexico. She was mentored by the late visionary Carol-Anne Bickerstaff and is currently a student of Sharon Stanley’s Somatic Transformation method.

She has a passion for Attachment Theory, Polyvagal Theory, Authentic Movement, Feldenkrais, Craniosacral Therapy, and self-responsible communication. She is a Consultant Facilitator of the One Brain System, a Certified BodyTalk Practitioner, has a Diploma in Shiatsu Therapy and is a former instructor at Mount Royal College in Calgary and Langara College in Vancouver.

Rita has deep respect for and experience with both non-traditional and Indigenous medicines and practices a non-pathologizing, body-centred, attachment-based, mindfulness and bio-psycho-social approach to healing. She is renewing her relationship with ancient wisdom and land-based direct knowledge.

Though she is now a retired dancer and actor she will always be a creator and performer. She is currently writing PUNK Therapy, drawing on her clinical work with psychedelic medicine in combination with somatic relational practices. In it, she documents the often painful and challenging but always deeply rewarding journey of client and medicine facilitator and their parallel journeys in healing. Her podcast PUNK THERAPY: Psychedelic Underground Neural Kindness launched on Feb 16th, 2022.

Born to Hungarian refugees who fled during the 1956 Revolution, Rita honours and remembers the long line of serfs and peasants who are her ancestors. She is devoted to the work it takes to become a kind and wise human, decolonizing the body and cultivating cherished and cooperative communities. Rita has found her private practice and creative endeavours to be mutually complementary. She brings love, commitment and curiosity to both, inspiring others to live embodied, rich, creative and soulful lives.