Springs, Pennsylvania, invited Forti to perform on their campus. Forti asked four of her workshop students at the time, K.J. Holmes, Lauri Nagel, David Rosenmiller, and David Zambrano, to perform with her at Yellow Springs. This group of five dancers formed an ensemble, Simone Forti & Troupe. The original lineup of dancers performed together until 1989, when Eric Schoefer joined the ensemble and David Rosenmiller left. Simone Forti & Troupe performed group pieces in multiple cities across the United States from 1986–1991. The main idea behind the group was to develop what Forti called "land portraits" for each location in which they performed. The group also often incorporated live drawing into their performances, such as with the piece To Be Continued, performed at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on April 16 and April 19, 1991. Of the live drawing, Forti wrote, "For us, the drawing of the objects was a bridge, and as we came to be intimate with the drawing, it worked as an analogy. If we could draw what we saw, we could 'body move' what we saw, with all the kinetic stimulation that can come from the developing page now coming from our movement in itself and in its relationship to its source: a torn box, a balcony of repeating arches, a corner where steam pipes disappear into the wall." Mad Brook Farm In 1988, Forti bought a cabin at Mad Brook Farm in East Charleston, Vermont, a small community that was settled into by a group of artists during the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s, where her longtime friend and collaborator Steve Paxton already lived. Forti wrote about living in East Charleston in "About the News Animations", an essay in the book Jeremiah Day/Simone Forti (2009, Project Press): "When I moved to rural Vermont, my impressions of the news began to mix together with impressions of the Milky Way and of bear tracks along the brook. The richly physical activity of gardening encourages daydream speculations and I was fascinated with the strategies of certain plants, especially the herbs, to take over their neighbors' territories." Forti lived at Mad Brook Farm for ten years, while also traveling to teach and perform. At Mad Brook Farm, Forti developed the group performance piece Green Mountain with her ensemble, Simone Forti & Troupe, which was performed at the Dance Theater Workshop in New York, NY, in 1988. Work in Los Angeles