Instructors:

Douglass Stewart, Co-Founder and Lead Instructor is a Senior teacher at Yoga Works and ISHTA and  co-founder of Solstice in Times Square, who nurtured the idea of bringing yoga into places that one wouldn't usually consider as being sacred.

Through his practice, rooted in the teachings of Alan Finger, founder of Yoga Zone and now of Yoga Works, Douglass has been exploring the interplay between the personal and the Universal.  His classes flow, each pose emerging gracefully to the next guided by the use of the breath.  Douglass has received the Center Special Service Award from the Lesbian and Gay Community Center for his volunteer yoga classes (for nearly 8 years!)  that were initially an offering to the HIV community but has since opened to include everyone.  Douglass is delighted to celebrate this Solstice in Times Square with so many yogis! (Instructor, 8am Session)    

Paula Tursi is the Owner of Levitate Yoga. (www.levitateyoga.com) She has been working with alternative healing practices in New York City and internationally for over fifteen years.

She began her training at Integral Yoga, where she studied Hatha and restorative Yoga. She went on to work with renowned teachers such as John Friend, Rodney Yee and Angela Farmer. She has also worked extensively with Leslie Kaminoff and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, in the art of yoga, breath work, anatomy, and movement awareness practices. She is certified at the 500 hour level with the Yoga Alliance and is an affiliated Anusara teacher. Most of her current studies are in Body Mind Center with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. (Instructor, 10:30am Session)

Patrick Lynch has been practicing Bikram Yoga for 6 years and has been teaching since December 2005.  He began his yoga practice at Bikram Yoga NYC in the Midtown location on 8th Avenue and teaches exclusively for Bikram Yoga NYC at the Midtown, UWS and UES studios. A native New Yorker, Patrick is right at home in Times Square as it is also his home and neighborhood!

When not in the yoga room Patrick spends his time practicing his singing and piano playing. An opera singer for the past 20 years he now and then still performs but mostly for benefits and fund raisers. (Instructor, 1pm Session)

Tim Tompkins, Co-Founder and Instructor is the President of the Times Square Alliance, the organization behind Solstice in Times Square. With Douglass (above) he conceived of the idea of a Summer Solstice Yoga celebration at the Crossroads of the World. While he has practiced yoga for over five years, he only recently became a certified yoga teacher after studying at Laughing Lotus.

He is grateful to his teachers there and also especially thanks Douglass for his wisdom and patience and for inspiring him to become a teacher in the first place. When not hanging out in the most urban and unnatural place in the world, Tim can be found on his sailboat Prana, enjoying the natural beauty of New York Harbor. (Instructor, 3:30pm Session)

Elena Brower is the founder and co-owner of Virayoga, in New York City's SoHo. Teaching for over 11 years, Elena offers her students a deft combination of  precise alignment and an inner experience of the heart.

Most recently, she's taught groundbreaking classes amidst the Pipilotti Rist atrium installation and in the sculpture garden, both at the MoMA. Featured in The New York Times, Yoga Journal, and FitYoga, Elena appears in the ELEMENT YOGA for BEGINNERS DVD series and the ELEMENT PRENATAL and POSTNATAL YOGA DVD to be released September 2009. She is honored to be teaching at the Wanderlust Festival in Lake Tahoe this summer and in her hometown NYC for the Summer Solstice in Times Square. (Instructor, 6pm Session)