Cornelius Puschke works as a dramaturge, curator, lecturer, author and artistic advisor. In collaboration with artists, he develops performances, festival programs, series, discussion events, workshops and texts.
 He grew up in Bremen and graduated in 2009 with a Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology and German Studies from the University of Hamburg. He worked as a mummy guard, camera assistant and football journalist and developed an interest in art and theater during his studies. He worked as a dramaturge in employment at institutions like the Maxim Gorki Theater (2010/2011) and at the Berliner Festspiele. There he conceived and co-curated the festival Foreign Affairs 2012/2013 as an artistic collaborator and the series Immersion (2016/2017) as a dramaturge. In 2014-2015 he was a guest professor for dramaturgy at HAW Hamburg. Since 2017 he has been working independently.

 In recent years, projects in a leading or curating position have increasingly emerged, such as the lecture performance series „100 neue Wörter“ (2022-2024) at the Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, „1000 Scores. Pieces for Here, Now & Later“ (together with Helgard Haug & David Helbich, 2020-), the online conference „Postpandemisches Theater“ (with Sophie Diesselhorst & Christian Rakow, 2020-), the „Schwarzmarkt für nützliches Wissen und Nicht-Wissen“ (2018), the „Schule der Distanz“ (2016) at the Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, the Brecht-Tage 2012 and 2020 (with Christian Hippe, Volker Issbrücker & Marianne Streisand).

He curated the editions of “100 new words for home”, “100 new words for work” and “100 new words for weather” in the years 2022-2024 and worked with the artists Antonia Baehr, Steven Solbrig, Sebastian Schmieg, Franziska Pierwoss & Siska, Nava Ebrahimi and Mascha Jacobs, ! Mediengruppe Bitnik, Senthuran Varatharajah, Ho Rui An, Heike Geißler and Anna Lena von Helldorff, Damian Rebgetz, Ann Cotten, Anta Helena Recke, Joana Moll, Sinthujan Varatharajah, Ed Atkins, Marco Donnarumma and Judith Schalansky.

Projects initiated and (co-)directed by him have been produced by institutions such as Hellerau – European Center for the Arts (Dresden), HAU – Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), International Summer Festival Kampnagel (Hamburg), Kanal-Centre Pompidou (Brussels), Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus (Berlin), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Tanz im August (Berlin).
As a freelance dramaturge, he has also worked at the Maxim Gorki Theater, the Münchner Kammerspiele and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt.


Since 2017, he has regularly taught on the dramaturgy course at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama (HfMT). Since 2022, he has co-directed the annual interdisciplinary study project “Recherchen”. He is also a lecturer at the HFBK Hamburg in the “Stage Design” course. He has also taught at the Hochschule der populären Künste Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Universität St. Gallen, HafenCity Universität Hamburg, Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Ludwigshafen and Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien.


He has held residencies at the Goethe Institute / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore (India), West Yorkshire Playhouse Leeds (UK) and at PACT Zollverein and scholarships from Steirischer Herbst, Festival Impulse, Fonds Darstellende Künste, Senate Department for Culture and Europe Berlin.