In the video of a fandango Jarocho from Veracruz, for example (above), you can see how a different couple must step on the tarima and stump during the instrumental interludes until somebody sings a new copla

In this way, for a breve moment, the participants of a given community turn into performers. Participants are able to show their ability in the execution of instruments, and somebody who exceeds in his performance it regarded by the others. According to Jessica Gottfried Hesketh, Improvisation and spontaneity create that "very particular organized type of festive chaos":

"Seen at a distance the fandangos are a chaotic crowd of passionate people who are completely absorbed in and centered around the tarima and everything that goes on there. But upon closer observation, the musical encounter contains dozens of stories being told at once, and dancers and musicians and poets interlocked in rhythmic sones and marcas that envelop their full attention leading to trance-like states. This is what was prohibited in many cases: not only the verses—which were quite daring and outrageous—but the self-organized fiesta, the fiesta form, a very powerful way of passing the time in social interaction."  (Gottfried Hesketh 2016, 383)

- she notes, as she discusses the prohibition of the Fandango during colonial times -  "Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the coming together of musicians, poets and dancers for hours or days in passionate festive encounters must have seemed a threat to church as well as secular authorities The fiesta itself, as much or more than the dances or the poetry therein, was and is subversive (Gottfried Hesketh, ebenda)

The piquant spirit of these gatherings, as a space for love and life, is often reflected in the verses. Fandango poetry is a humorous way to deal with the human condition.

La mujer es una prenda
tan valiosa como el as
ella es la que nos enmienda
para vivir al compás
también nos jala la rienda
pa que no andemos de más!

(lyrics of the Huapango "La Asucena", by Los Camperos de Valles)

"the fandango is not the dance, the verses and the music, but the entire occasion, the fiesta as such. This fiesta is a musical occasion in which there are many possible ways of participating in the singing, the dancing, and the playing, but for each of the three options there is a basic musical structure for each son or marca, which all musicians and dancers know. Within these limits and rules, fiesta participants play, dialogue, communicate, defy, express, conquer, compete, and so on. The verse, music, and percussive dancing allow spontaneous participation of anyone who has the basic knowledge to do so." (Gottfried Hesketh 2016, 382)

The fandango, in its ancient form of communal dance party or "Fiesta", as Jessica Gottfried Hesketh refers to it (Gottfried Hesketh 2016, 375), still survives nowadays throughout the territory of what where once the Portuguese and Spanish Empire, even preserving its original name in some places like the Mexican Huasteca-region, and parts of the insular Caribbean. 

Besides the Iberian peninsula, Garcia de Leon lists the coast of Veracruz; Panama's interior; The Eastern and Western Cuban countryside; the interior of Spanish Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico; the interior plains of Colombia and Venezuela; eastern Venezuela and Margarita Island " (García de León 2002, 103)

Testimonies from the XVIII century described this practice among the peasantry of the greater Caribbean pretty much as it still happens nowadays: According to García de Leon, people would gather with percussion and string instruments around Tarimas and would "stomp their feets day and night". At the lights of candles, verses and stories would be sung or recited, both improvised and known. Historical descriptions constantly underline the sensuality of the dance, like the one by the Moreau de Saint Mery, who describes the fandangos in his 1797 description of Saint Domingue. He relates the more permissive social interactions between the Spaniards and the enslaved Africans in the Spanish part of the Island in comparison with the French one (García de León 2002, 108)

A fandango "Fiesta" today, is a festive ritual of integration where a community strengthens its cohesion through different activities, often including competition. Contests of improvised verses, in which the participants measure their are common. They are called "controversias" in Cuba and Spain, and Piquerías in the Fiestas of the Llanos (plains) from Colombia and Venezuela. In the controversias, the participants measure their cunning. In the Llanos and in Mexico, there are jousting games involving cattle, in which they measure their physical strength. Below, on the right, you can see an example of Colombo-Venezuelan Piquería and a Cuban Controversia

Fandango-Fiestas are usually the pastime for the weekends. On special holidays, or in festivals specific to each community they acquire a more ritualized character. In rural areas of Spain Fandangos are known as "bailes de candil" or candlelight dances (the image to the side is an engraving of the XIX century depicting the dance) These spaces are the first occasions in which courting relationships are established between adolescents. "Men and women usually were separated in different areas of gathering with a characteristic manner of men inviting women to dance. (...) They always constituted a particular type of symbolic authority for the occasion according to the traditions of each; however, fights often occurred due to jealousy" (Berlanga 2016, 18)

In some stylized versions of Fandango- dances, the courtship element is set in the traditional choreographies involving the use of a scarf, like the case of the Peruvian Marinera, or the Colombian San Juanero. Fandango dances are couple dances where the distinctive choreographic element is the stumping of the feet. In some places like Mexico and Brazil, this is done upon a wooden deck called "Tarima". Fancy heel work, or "Zapateo" can be observed in the Llanero music from Colombia and Venezuela, as in the following video by Grupo Cimarrón: