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It was not until after she was hurt in a car accident at age 17 that Judith Smith discovered her life in dance.

Before the accident, she had been a champion equestrian, a skilled rider of graceful horses.

Afterward — fueled by determination and passion and aided by a wheelchair — she became a professional dancer and a founding member of the Axis Dance Company of Oakland, Calif.

Smith and Axis perform in Albuquerque next Friday as part of the VSA North Fourth Art Center's Out of the Ordinary Festival.

"Some people think that if you have physical disabilities, you can't possibly have the same creative talent and capabilities of people without disabilities," said Marge Neset, VSA executive director. "But disability does not lessen creativity."

Neset knows all about that because VSA is devoted to art education for disabled people.

"People with disabilities can do brilliant work," she said. "Some of the most amazing art in the world comes from people — such as Judith Smith — who have physical disabilities, or from people who have mental health issues, or who have grown up in difficult circumstances. Sometimes those situations enhance creativity."

Those situations certainly provide a different point of view. And that's what VSA's second annual Out of the Ordinary Festival — a three-week-long presentation of visual art, theater, dance, film and discussion — is about.

"The festival's mission is, first of all, to provide work that is really good and interesting," Neset said. "But secondly, it is about presenting other ideas, the perspectives of someone who dances in a wheelchair or who can't hear or who has grown up in a country plagued by strife."

Faustin Linyekula of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is an artist who grew up in a country ravaged by conflict. Linyekula and his company, Les Studios Kabako, close out the festival Nov. 23 and 24 with performances of the dance-theater piece "Festival of Lies."

Set during a storytelling night in an African village, "Festival of Lies" is about individuals finding a voice in stories of everyday life as well as in stories about greed, violence and political corruption.

"Faustin is an artist, not an activist, but his dance comes out of his social environment," Neset said. "We all come out of our different worlds."

Playwright Ain Gordon does not have a disability. He comes not from a world of social injustice and genocide but rather from the creative world of a family steeped in dance and theater.

But Gordon's play, "Epic Family Epic," which will be performed at the festival tonight and Saturday, shows that the inability to communicate can hobble anyone regardless of level of physical ability, social standing or country of origin.

In Gordon's play, a professional company of hearing, hearing impaired and deaf actors portray the Hell family which dissolves into chaos during a holiday dinner spiced with the inability to get through to one another or to remember much of anything.

"It's about how we talk past our friends and family members," Neset said. "It's very funny, but it's a pointed humor. And it's a movement piece, like movement theater, very stylized."

An element new to the festival this year is Out of the Ordinary in Context, a free program of film and discussion every Saturday during the festival.

There'll be brunch and a film at 10 a.m., followed by lunch and an open discussion with festival panelists at noon.

This Saturday, the film is "What Does a Person Deserve?" Ken Kimmelman's movie is about homelessness and hunger.

Saturday's discussion topic is "Community, Context and Character." Panelists include director Ain Gordon, New Mexico songwriter and musician Larry Lorenzo, Albuquerque performance artist Juba-Omeste Clayton and the cast of "Epic Family Epic."

"The idea (for the film and discussion series) comes from the fact that I've spent years and years going to performances I've loved and being curious about what from an artist's world led to a particular work," Neset said.

"This gives us a chance to put the work of the performing artist in some kind of context so we can know a little more about his or her subject."

Neset said people will sit around a table, talk about art and the world and share coffee, bagels and — of course — points of view.