Julia Stoiber is the founder of the FCBD® style dance group Anam Damhsa. The name is Gaelic and means ‘Soul Dance’. She danced as part of Anam Chara, Linz from June 2018 till October 2024 and is currently building another student group. Her dance journey began as a child of four with tap and ballet. At eleven, got her black belt in karate igniting a love of syllabus and drilling/training. She discovered ‘belly dance’ unintentionally around 2005 as Carol Gibbon’s first student in Cheltenham, the UK. Her teacher realised Julia’s style fit well with an emerging dance form known as Tribal Fusion and recommended she try it. Julia saw Rachel Brice on a DVD and soaked up every tutorial and workshop she could but as the dance form was so new, there wasn’t anyone in her county teaching it at that time.

In 2007 Julia moved to Austria to be with her now husband where she began to learn German, retrained, and commenced a new occupation as an English language trainer where she became head teacher at the Cambridge Institute Linz after one year of teaching, That is when she also took courses in management. Following this she became a certified teacher trainer where she worked at over fifty schools all over Austria as a registered cert TESOL trainer leading student groups and for the government’s CPD Schilf system for teachers at those schools. As part of this work she had to produce weekly student shows where she learned some event management. She currently teaches at the Upper Austrian University of Applied sciences at Bachelor and Master’s levels.

Around 2010 Julia was thrilled to find a tribal fusion teacher (Manuela Kraus) near Linz and drove two hours a week to train with her. This commenced travel in 2013 to various workshops around Europe to learn from renowned teachers such as Jill Parker, Kami Liddle, Moria Chappell, The Lady Fred and Illan Rivière to name a few. It was during her regular classes that she met Dani, a member of Anam Chara. In 2015, Julia began workshops with Dani to learn ‘ATS’. In 2018 Julia was invited to join Anam Chara, and did so at Midsummer. Another troupe member, Marisa and Julia quickly became firm friends and decided to go to a workshop together in February 2020 in Hannover taught by Gudrun Herold. This led to her FCBD® training advancing rapidly as Gudrun’s mentee and she received weekly private lessons from her as well as participating in her regular classes for three years, and often drives to her workshops in addition to completing courses on FCBDu. Other highlights were a private lesson with Carolena Nericcio, the founder of the dance style and another with Kristine Adams, FCBD Troupe member emeritus. As her training continued, she renovated her garage into a gym and dance studio complete with a mirror wall. She has taught FCBD® style since October 2020 and leads the group training for Anam Damhsa, Anam Chara and her new student group, and loves to combine her passion and knowledge of didactics with her love for FCBD® style dance. She has created informational handouts, video tutorials and flows for her students available on the Anam Damhsa website. Having had to learn German, and through teaching English, she realised that her community was lingually isolated from the Global Fat Chance community. This led to her idea for the FCBD Faces interview series. She also has her own YouTube channel where she posts about all things FCBD Style.

She has participated in many performance intensives and show backs and regularly attends Roma Tribal and Serendipity. In March 2024 she travelled to Salt Lake City to stay with and perform on stage with Melody Bustillos dancing her sword dialect. She has led Anam Damhsa at many shows. One favourite was performing on the main stage as the opener for the Linz Ritterfest which takes place in the city centre each summer. She completed her FCBD® style General Skills training (online 2021) where she wrote the ‘What is Fat Chance bellydance?’ piece which has been translated into many languages and published on the FCBDu YouTube channel, and Teacher Training in the Summer of 2022 and holds the first FCBD® Partner Studio status in Austria. In addition she co-organises the three day FCBD Style festival Skills’n’Zills in Linz, where she has hosted and learned from notable teachers such as Kelley Beeston, Melody Bustillos, Gudrun Herold, Lisi Brümmer, Kristine Adams and Philippa Morai.