In the late 1940s, following World War II, she had a modest career with the Paris Opera Ballet, making a notable appearance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1948 in a principal role in Lifar's production of Le Pas d'Acier ("The Steel Step"), a modern ballet about Soviet factory workers set to a score in le style mécanique by Prokofiev.
[citation needed] Returning to France, Adret joined Jean-Albert Cartier in 1968 in the creation of the Ballet Théâtre Contemporain, the first national choreographic center, established in Amiens.
She was then appointed inspector general for dance projects in the Ministry of Culture, a post she retained until 1985, when she was invited by Louis Erlo, director of the Lyon Opera, to create a new ballet company committed to contemporary choreographers.
[8] Adret next became artistic director and chief choreographer of the Ballet du Nord in Roubaix, where in 1994 she mounted two new versions of Symphonie de Psaumes and Le Tricorne.
From 1995 to 1998 the Association Française d'Action Artistique sent her on three overseas missions, during which she taught dance classes and choreographed works in Seoul, South Korea, in Montevideo, Uruguay, and in Asunción, Paraguay.
A small, energetic woman with a sparkling wit, Adret was generally acknowledged as a figure incontournable ("indispensable person") in twentieth-century French dance.