Dancing--and Educating--in the Streets : Dance: If choreographer Joel Christensen wants to build an audience for his troupe, he figures the best approach is to meet them outdoors.

Choreographer Joel Christensen has been pounding the pavement lately.

The 24-year-old Toronto-born hoofer, who’s one of the whiz kids of the mega-athletic modern strain known as “hyperdance,” isn’t looking for work. But he has been taking his dance to the streets, at sites from the Third Street Promenade to the UCLA quad.

Tripping the light fantastic outdoors is no mere “Singin’ in the Rain” homage, though, it’s a career move. “I thought ‘What can I do to make myself stand out?’ ” says Christensen, seated in the lobby of the Los Angeles Theatre Center, as his company rehearses nearby.

“I was thinking people in L.A. would be less open to it than New Yorkers,” says the New York University-educated Christensen of his al fresco performances. “But I also thought, ‘I don’t have a choice anymore.’ I don’t know how else to educate the public and get people to come to my shows.”

Such brash schemes, after all, may be just what it takes to make your mark on the L.A. dance scene. “I’ve never met anybody in the dance world who’s been here longer than a year who wouldn’t say it’s problematic,” Christensen says. “Dance has a lot to compete with.”

Yet if anyone is up to the challenge, the energetic choreographer seems a likely candidate. His Christensen Dance Company presents “Machine” at the 500-seat Tom Bradley Theatre at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Thursday through Saturday.

The bill includes two new works--one of which is the concert premiere of “100,” the piece that the company has been performing outdoors--as well as the previously seen “Boing,” “Blocks” and “Tired.” It’s the first time that the troupe--which includes Christensen, Maryann Thomson, Caroline Aizawa and Bill Schurman--has performed in a venue of this size.

But the bold stroke of moving up to so large a space so quickly is Christensen all over.

A former member of fellow “hyperdancer” Mehmet Sander’s company, he first got into dance at Beverly Hills High. “I was signed up for football and the dance teacher found out that I was interested and came over and pulled me out of line,” says the 1988 grad. “I went to rehearsal, fell in love with it and within days decided that was my life.”

Christensen went on to train at NYU but didn’t graduate. Then, in May of 1992, he returned to L.A. to get married. He ended up staying longer than originally planned, largely so that his wife could be around for her daughter’s last two years of high school.

And since then, he, like Sander before him, has caught the eye of dance aficionados with task-oriented, physically risky dances that often entail stunts with heavy objects such as tires--although his is a decidedly more lighthearted approach than Sander’s.

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Yet Christensen knows that it takes more than just making dances to get a career on track. “It’s pretty easy to interact with the dance world as a male dancer, but as a choreographer, you’ve got to prove yourself,” he says.

The emphasis has to be twofold. “Right now, it’s about enjoying my work and also achievement--so that people respond and I don’t have to keep self-producing,” Christensen continues. “Granted I do it for the sake of doing it, but I can’t deny that success plays a role.”

Hence such tactics as the outdoor concerts. “It was so satisfying to see somebody look at it, and if they weren’t interested, just walk away,” says Christensen of his company’s five performances on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. “And people stopped and watched too. It was so honest.”

“For me,” he says, “that’s what dance is all about--’What can I do that will get you to watch me?’ ”

In fact, it has worked so well that Christensen is no longer sure that New York is the best place for an emerging choreographer like himself. “I have much more momentum here than I expected,” he says. “In the final analysis, maybe it feels less oppressive in L.A.

” . . . When dance gets hard here, I think about New York. But L.A. has less competition. It feels freer, more friendly.”

* “Machine,” Christensen Dance Co., Theatre 2, LATC, 514 S. Spring St., downtown. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m., $8. (213) 485-1631.