A white screen divides the space in half. A light shines into one side and members of local performance group CreateAbility sit on the other side. They are watching co-performers experiment with shadows.

Some are big shadows, some are small. At one point, the dark outline of CreateAbility performer Samuel Thompson is enveloped by his own hat’s oversize shadow. It is a play on perspectives and one of many ideas workshop facilitator Jillian Pearce is showing the group.

CreateAbility is using this shadow lab as its members play with different ideas for upcoming show Dendron: The Forest in Us.

The group’s mood is light but the stillness and shadows of the shadow lab, and the music wafting through the speakers, are already creating a powerful ambience.

CreateAbility member Yvette Keane says she loves the way performances can create an atmosphere.

“And I love seeing the audience after the show,” she says.

“It makes you feel very warm inside. They clap and it’s a really good feeling – you feel very contented,” she says.

Come time for the performance, everyone will have a go at everything. They will also have their own moment in the spotlight.

Everyone had their own strengths. Gregory McDowell is a good dramatic actor. Others, like Sarah Goninon, Francis Bush and Ned Middleton are strong dancers.

Sarah is one of the veterans of the group.

“Sometimes, when you have someone who is new to the group they get nervous. I’m not, but I’ve performed many times,” she says.

She has done it all and can use that experience to help keep people calm before shows.

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Dendron will be inspired by the woods that turn up in so many tales and fables.

“It’s about trees, forests and campgrounds,” Sarah says.

The show has a long lead-in time. Gregory says it can take six months of work, and creative producer John Willis adds that it can take as long as a year.

The long creative process is needed in part because members of CreateAbility have disabilities and need time to get used to the ideas they explore.

Time is also needed for the creative process to flow.

“It’s a really interesting process, making a show like this. Because we are devising it among ourselves we don’t start with a script,” John says.

“We start with a bunch of ideas, or perhaps with a story or piece of writing. We explore the themes within that and dig about until we find some things that are interesting.

“We are asking the ensemble to respond to those ideas and bring their own material to it.”

Often, it is a matter of playing with ideas and seeing what comes out of experiments. Sarah says the group has been exploring the movement of trees.

John says that as well as shadows and movement, the group is experimenting with sound composition and ways to use all senses, even smell.

“It’s about creating something that gives the audience this sensory experience and be drawn into the world we are creating,” he says.

“It’s not so much about following a story in the traditional sense. There is still ideas and a story we want to get across, but we are doing that through inviting people to have an experience in a world.”

The group casts a wide net for inspiration. Samuel says one of his personal highlights so far has been a visit to prominent Australian artist John Wolseley’s workshop, where the group gained insights into artistic techniques including for the use of burnt sticks and bark.

CreateAbility members have made multiple visits to the Whipstick forest.

Some of the long, fibrous gum branches brought into the shadow lab from the local environment have featured in today’s experiments.

One minute, the branches’ shadows set the scene for stories playing out on the shadow lab’s cloth. The next, they become central to the action as a spider-like hand dashes across them.

Once the group members have developed a range of interesting material, John says they will order it all and connect it together.

“Then it is a matter of moving pieces around until they kind of gel,” he says.

“At some point it will start looking like something we can say is complete. It’s a dynamic sort of process.”

Workshop facilitator Jillian Pearce says the shadow lab and the tools explored in today’s exercises provide a starting point for ideas.

“It’s that sense of play and curiosity. What if I did this? What if you did that? What if we did this together? Those sorts of questions invite possibility,” she says.

“It is that possibility that becomes the realised artwork.”

It will be up to the group to decide whether they would like to explore ideas from today’s workshop further. However, Jillian hopes the workshop will spark collaborations with group she represents, ACT Natimuk.

“I know I would like to explore ideas further and see whether the images we might make could be used in the show our group will do in Bendigo,” she says.

Jillian is codirector for that show, which will aim to encase the Rosalind Park poppet head in material so images can be projected onto its skin.

Ideas for the project mentioned when the Regional Centre for Culture, which is backing it and Dendron, announced it last November, included aerial artists dangling from the poppet head structure.

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Jillian says part of the project could involve a “shadow capture” element.

“We capture the stories that are made – film them, essentially – and use them in a variety of different ways, including just purely projecting them. They are very striking and beautiful images,” she says.

“We’ve done a few projects like that, where we have come into a community and captured its shadows and story making, then projected them on buildings and walls.

“It’s just one of the many visual languages we play with.”

The poppet head project is still in its infancy and ACT Natimuk is approaching groups in the community to see how they might want to be involved.

“CreateAbility was our first workshop … we are approaching groups and beginning to dream,” Jillian says.

“It’s our language in the hands of the Bendigo community, to tell their story on their iconic structure.”

Jillian says her favorite part of the creative process is dreaming with people about what is possible.

“I find that really exciting,” she says.

“The process is really exciting too. It’s up, it’s down. It’s a huge thing, bringing it all together and letting Bendigo speak through its poppet head,” she says.

The ACT Natimuk performance takes place in October, while CreatAbility’s takes place in November.