Little Jack briefly hugging Philip in dance (8)
I believe the answer is:
hornpipe
'dance' is the definition.
(hornpipe is a kind of dance)
'little jack briefly hugging philip' is the wordplay.
'little jack' becomes 'horner' (I've seen this in another clue).
'briefly' means to remove the last letter.
'hugging' means one lot of letters goes inside another (outside letters hug or embrace inside letters).
'philip' becomes 'pip' (can be a nickname for Philip).
'horner' with its final letter removed is 'horne'.
'horne' enclosing 'pip' is 'HORNPIPE'.
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for hornpipe that I've seen before include "Lively solo dance associated with sailors" , "Obsolete instrument: naval dance" , "Lively jig" , "Lively old sailors' dance" , "piece of music for an > old dance" .)