shoes can change the way dance feels but i think it is worth the hasel having had a fragment of glass in my foot i would rather have the shoes. They can save you from splinters, glass and other things that would just make in impossible to dance at all. I have only used leather ballet slippers and they don't get in the way as much as i think jazz shoes would. but as for shoes or no shoes you do need to get use to one if you have been doing the other it changes the friction on the floor.

Personally, I prefer to go barefoot. I walk around outside barefoot all the time. I'm the psycho that walks on gravel and loose stone barefoot! It's only ever bad when there's a stone that juts up into the arch of my foot. I thought I could take anything. However, this summer I was dancing at Pagan Pride Day in Austin. I was out dancing to live drummers, and before I could really find my groove (it takes me a bit to really get into it if I don't know the drummers) I started having this searing, burning pain in my feet. I backed out of the dance area and let the other dancer take my spot after way too little dancing, then got out of where the audience could keep eyes on me, dropped to the ground, and grabbed my poor feet! Just one look explained my problem....stickle burrs! There were stickle burrs all over my feet! I had to sit there and pick them all out and then put some ballet slippers on so I could dance again. My poor feet hurt for the rest of the day. After that, I've learned my lesson. I won't dance without shoes unless I know the surface will work barefoot. Yes, it takes an adjustment, but it's much better to adjust to wearing shoes while still a beginner and not to have to worry about splinters.

Personally, I find relatively no difference between learning to dance barefoot and in shoes, as long as they're light and flexible shoes, like ballet slippers. I find that depending on the surface, it's sometimes easier to do things like spins in slippers than barefoot and vice versa. It all depends on what you're dancing on. I consider the slippers to be part of my costume when I'll need them. Then again, you're also talking to the girl who has danced in Corcorran jump boots. Personally, I think any choice of shoes or no shoes is fine, since for dance, that's so much of a personal preference.

I have a tan and black pair of ones like these
www.dancewearsolutions.com/default.asp

I rarely dance barefoot anymore for a performance. Too many issues with icky floors or funky stages. I wear them to class if I'm having cold feet or sticky feet problems. But I usually do ok barefoot on a studio floor.

I never wear shoes to class accept when we do dress rehersal with a costume that calls for shoes (like field trip kids for last Bloodmoon)
Sometimes Verbatim has outdoor gigs we wear shoes for, I always wear my saltwaters because they are as close to the ground my soles can get and they don't get torn up by gravel.

Let me share a Verbatim gig horror story from last spring.
We were working a booth and performing at a Downtown business association block party. They had one of those industrual carpeted, asselmbled from multiply sections, but raised stages. The band had some equipment on it, but we checked it out at like 10 am and decided there was plenty of space to dance on stage without shoes rather than in front of the stage with shoes. We performed our first set during the noon hour, and this stage had been in the sun baking all that time. Long story short Verbatim burned the soles of their feets on hot carpet for one gureling twenty min set. Luckily there was a massga school booth that gave me cold towels and ice. I still had blisters for three days. Salt waters go in the costume basket/hat box all the time now.