Adele Nickel was born in Portland, OR and trained 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 she danced with Annie-B Parson, Sarah Michelson and Patrick Corbin, among others, and was a longtime member of the “Bessie”-nominated Liz Gerring Dance Company (2009-15). The New York Times has commended Adele’s “calm, quiet lyricism” and described her work with Gerring as “full-bodied dancing that changes my breathing.” 

While in NYC, Adele also became an AmSAT-certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and trained extensively in Body-Mind Centering, Bartenieff Fundamentals, and embodied anatomy & kinesiology. She left NYC to pursue her MFA at the University of Washington in 2017 and now lives and works in Houston, Texas, where she is an Assistant Professor at Sam Houston State University.

Adele’s choreography has most recently been presented by Diverse Works’ 12MM Festival, the Texas Dance Improvisation Festival, Barnstorm Dance Fest, and the Whirlwind Dance Company at the Columbus Museum of Art. She was a 2024-25 Artist-in-Residence with Dance Source Houston and is looking forward to creating new works for Open Dance Project and Houston Contemporary Dance Company during the 2026-27 season. Adele also continues to perform in her own work and in collaboration with Brian Lawson (Form Believers), Paty Lorena Solorzano, and other interdisciplinary artists.

As an educator, Adele teaches dance technique, composition, anatomy, somatics, and aesthetic theory at the undergraduate and graduate level; her article on the application of Polyvagal Theory to dance pedagogy was recently published by the Journal of Dance Education and included in a special collection on “Pedagogies of Care & Trauma-Informed Teaching in Dance Education.” Adele also teaches the Alexander Technique in private practice and is training to become a Craniosacral Therapist. 

You can follow her on Instagram @kingdellers.