  We studied social decision-making in the rule-based improvisational dance
$There$ $Might$ $Be$ $Others$, where dancers make in-the-moment compositional
choices. Rehearsals provided a natural test-bed with communication restricted
to non-verbal cues. We observed a key artistic explore-exploit tension in which
the dancers switched between exploitation of existing artistic opportunities
and riskier exploration of new ones. We investigated how the rules influenced
the dynamics using rehearsals together with a model generalized from
evolutionary dynamics. We tuned the rules to heighten the tension and modeled
nonlinear fitness and feedback dynamics for mutation rate to capture the
observed temporal phasing of the dancers' exploration-versus-exploitation.
Using bifurcation analysis, we identified key controls of the tension and
showed how they could shape the decision-making dynamics of the model much like
turning a "dial" in the instructions to the dancers could shape the dance. The
investigation became an integral part of the development of the dance.
