By Leiselle Maraj Wednesday, January 2 2013

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NEW YEAR'S DANCE: Minister of Housing Dr Roodal Moonilal dances with his wife Natasha at the Hyatt Regency's Old Year's night party, heralding 2013....

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Fun and festivity signalled the start of the New Year at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad, Port-of-Spain. The hotel hosted one of the many New Year’s parties held on Monday night and into the early hours of Tuesday morning.

This year’s theme of Golden Jubilee celebrated Trinidad and Tobago’s 50th Independence Anniversary which was one of the highlights of 2012. Guests, including many politicians and local personalities, partied to the sounds of Kes the Band. Soca artiste, Kees Dieffenthaller led the band through a set that included classic and new soca from a wide variety of artistes. Closer to the midnight hour, he switched to an international flavour, including some Dance and Pop tracks.

During the countdown to 2013, he welcomed Denyse Plummer, who entertained earlier that night, back on stage to usher in the New Year with her rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Friends greeted each other with hugs and toasts to the New Year while couples kissed and held each other in their arms. Kees, taking advantage of this mood, resumed his performance with songs that allowed couples to continue to slow dance then got back into the celebrations with a mix of local and international popular songs of the past.

He ended his set by prepping the crowd for the 2013 Carnival season by singing some of the new and popular music for the season including his “Thief A Wine”. He used that opportunity to come into the crowd and thief a wine on his wife, Teri Leigh Bovell, whom he married after the last Carnival season. “It’s not often I get to do this,” he said as Bovell gave her husband a dance showing the rest of the room one of the reasons why he got married to her.

Guests continued to party the night away after the set with music by the DJ who kept the party going into the first few hours of the New Year.