… English patterns of sociability in order to distinguish themselves in colonial society and to mix in British circles. Refinement of one’s person, and opportunities to display this in select groups, were essential to elite distinction, … and 1730s, masters including Samuel Perpoint, Thomas Ball and sister, and Theobold Hackett 4 advertised dancing as refinement, promising to teach adults and children grace of carriage and genteel behaviors, along with the latest dances … its own Dancing Assembly. In the 1770s, dancing masters’ advertisements shifted from the general promise of corporeal refinement through dance to the specifics of teaching minuets, hornpipes, cotillions, and country dances, ‘as practiced …