Adele Nickel was born in Portland, OR and trained on scholarship with Oregon Ballet Theater, the Joffrey School and the San Francisco Ballet before moving to New York to pursue a career in modern dance. There Adele danced with Patrick Corbin, Sarah Michelson and Karole Armitage, among others, and was a member of the Liz Gerring Dance Company from 2009 – 2015, with whom she performed and toured to critical acclaim. Adele was featured in the original cast of Liz Gerring's Glacier, which was named #4 on the New York Times' "Best Dance of 2013" and nominated for a 2013 Bessie Award.

From 2015 —2017 Adele assisted choreographer Annie-B Parson working with Grammy Award-winning rock musician St. Vincent, and performed as a backup dancer with St. Vincent at her sold-out engagement at the Hollywood Bowl. The New York Times has commended Adele’s “calm, quiet lyricism” and critic Alistair Macaulay described her work with Liz Gerring as “full-bodied dancing that changes my breathing…This is engagingly here-and-now dancing, and that kinesthetic effect is something rare, even intoxicating.”

In 2017, Adele left NYC to pursue her MFA at University of Washington; while in Seattle she performed with Chamber Dance Company (CDC) and danced in works by Susan Marshall, Lucinda Childs and Daniel Charon. In October 2019 she reprised Wendy Whelan’s role in Brian Brooks’ duet “First Fall,” representing the first time this work was presented since its original cast.

Now an Assistant Professor of Dance at Sam Houston State University, Adele continues to perform in her own work, most notably in collaborations with Brian Lawson (Form Believers) and Alethea Alexander (www.adeleandalethea.com).