Things went badly wrong for the National Ballet during the Arab Spring and the conservative religious backlash that followed. “The company is still recovering from the turmoil. Most foreign dancers fled amid the 2011 uprising. Foreign ballerinas are back, but now the company — like the rest of Egypt — struggles with austerity measures imposed by the government to repair the damaged economy. Funds are tighter. After devaluations, even the best paid dancers make the equivalent of only a few hundred dollars a month.”